take a sad song and make it better
by Alanabloom
Summary: Sort of "Young Blood", vignette style, from Diane's perspective. But the first half ended up just being Diane and Alex backstory that is just as applicable to canon as to my 'verse. So...if you're not into the YB stuff but just want some early Diane and Alex, first chapter's still completely applicable. For the second chapter, you only have to have read "YB" not all the sequels.
1. Chapter 1

**Important Stuff:** So this was supposed to just be _Young Blood_ from Diane's perspective, vignette style. I've wanted to do that for awhile, but made the mistake of waiting until after _With or Without You_ which….yeah. So I was full of my Diane feelings, and the first of the two parts is essentially just Diane (and Alex) backstory before we catch up to YB canon. Even if you're not into YB 'verse, you could read (almost) all of part one simply as canon backstory. For part two, you only have to have read "Young Blood", not all the sequels.

(Also, I have forever headcanoned pre-pregnancy Diane with the Band Aid characters in _Almost Famous_, so if you've seen that movie, think of Kate Hudson's character to get a sense of the Lee Burley time period.)

* * *

This is the whole story:

Diane Vause fell in love easily and often. She fell in love dozens of times, with dozens of boys, until her daughter was born and any other love she'd ever felt seemed to dim.

Her daughter only fell in love once.

Diane got to watch.

* * *

Eight days before Diane Vause gives birth, Death Maiden releases a new record.

She doesn't have enough money to buy it, but she still takes a bus downtown to find a record store. Lee's face sneers up at her from the album cover alongside his bandmates. She lets the bottom of the record sleeve rest against the swollen curve of her belly, and the baby gives a sharp, defiant kick. That makes her smile, a little.

Five minutes later, the employee at the register with black hair black eyes and black lipstick, catches Diane trying to leave the store with the album under her coat.

She ends up pulling a Polaroid photograph out of her wallet, her and Lee cuddled up on his tour bus maybe ten months ago, pointing back and forth between the picture and the album cover, going on a tirade about how she's carrying Lee Burley's baby and therefore shouldn't have to fucking pay for his fucking shitty record. The terrified employee had let her go, and let take the album with her.

(Ten years later, when she starts to tell that story, she makes it hilarious and triumphant, which means leaving out the part where she started bawling in the middle of the store, and how the salesgirl had looked both terrified and disgusted, practically demanding she leave before the store's Cool was further disturbed by a crying, pregnant eighteen year old.)

She goes back to the dingy motel room, packed full of the baby stuff she's been buying at yard sales and Goodwills for the past seven months, and turns on the record player.

Lee wrote two tracks on the album, but there's nothing of Diane in the lyrics. The money Lee gave her - or, rather, the money he left in an envelope before the band rolled out of town without her - is gone. Any day now, probably before her due date next week, the motel is going to realize the payments aren't going through anymore, and she'll be kicked out.

But the critics are trashing this latest album, saying Death Maiden have passed their peak, and Diane does hear _that_ in the songs, so there's at least one small comfort.

* * *

Her water breaks in the diner, only an hour into her shift and her first instinctual thought is _Thank God, a day off_. Because her feet are swollen and her back hurts constantly and she feels huge and disgusting and tired, but she's kept dragging herself to work to make as much as she can before the baby comes.

Jodi, the motherly waitress who's always covered for Diane when she takes too long breaks to rest, offers to drive her to the hospital but their manager won't let both of them leave. So Jodi helps Diane to her car, presses all the cash from her tips into Diane's hand and sends her off with a worried eyed smile and a _Good luck, honey._

She drives herself to a county hospital and walks alone into the Emergency Room; she doesn't have a regular doctor, hasn't had regular appointments during the pregnancy; she saw three different doctors three different times, at clinics; the first two visits had been two early to tell much about the baby, and the third time it wasn't in the right position at the right moment, so she doesn't even know what she's having. She doesn't even know if it's okay.

It hurts so fucking much more than she'd expected, even though everyone told her and told her and told her. She's still shocked fresh by the intensity of every contraction, never getting used to them even as they get closer and closer together.

Diane is scared and in pain, and for the first time in years she wants her mother

But she doesn't call her, doesn't call anyone, so it's just a nurse holding her hand, a nurse who stays unblinking and patient while Diane howls strings of curses, a nurse who cuts the cord and brings Diane her screaming, squirming baby girl.

The first time she looks at her daughter, Diane bursts into tears.

(Later, she always leaves that out of the story, because there were too many reasons for the crying.)

When they ask for a name, she hesitates over the last half. There is nothing stopping her from choosing _Burley_, from putting Lee down on the birth certificate, keep him tied to this against his wishes. She could give her daughter a famous last name, validation to a claim she can make later in life, a connection Lee will never actually offer.

Even absent, Lee could give her more than Diane will ever be able to.

But as her daughter fits against the hollow of her chest, a wave of possessiveness ripples through Diane, seeping out of her heart that feels too big for her chest. She looks down at the baby's scrunched, crimson face, perfect tiny fingers curling and uncurling, and Diane thinks: _mine_.

_Her_ daughter. _Her_ family, in its entirety. She's not even an hour old, and Diane can already tell this baby will be enough for her; she promises herself to try hard to be enough back.

So she chooses _Vause _like she's forming an alliance: the two of them against the world.

The first name Diane does not stumble over. She always knew it would be Alex.

* * *

Her father had big hands and a beard and he was almost always smiling. He loved The Beatles and he played their songs on an old acoustic guitar. He tickled and gave piggyback rides and always had Lifesavers in his pockets.

Diane gave her older sister Clara two Barbie dolls to switch their sides of the bedroom, so Diane could have the bed that pushed right against the window, just for the few nights when she could hear the comforting rumble of her dad's voice, floating over from the porch while he drank beers and laughed with his buddies. Sometimes he played his guitar, and Diane would fall asleep to his songs like a lullaby.

Most nights, though, he left the house after bedtime, after tucking them in and telling some meandering story he'd make up as he went; the lights would go off and within a half hour the girls' bedroom would flood with headlights as his car pulled away. As they understood it, he was off to play games for money.

Sometimes he'd wake them up at the crack of dawn, lit up with delight because he'd won big, and he'd drive the whole family away on a spontaneous trip, to the beach or the city or an amusement park, anywhere he could shower them with gifts. Even if the sun wasn't up yet. Even if it was a school day. Her mom and Clara always fell back asleep in the car, but Diane stayed awake, riding the energetic waves of her dad's excitement, letting him tell her about his wins, things she only half understood. _I was magic last night, baby_. That much she believed, wholeheartedly.

Her dad smelled like smoke and whistled better than anyone in the world and he seemed a hundred feet tall, tall enough to hang the moon and sun and personally arrange the stars. He was made of magic, and Diane adored him.

One day when she was in third grade, her dad wasn't home for breakfast. That wasn't unusual, and Diane thought nothing of it while the three of them ate cereal without him, or while she and her sister rode the bus to school, or all morning long until she was called to the principal's office in the middle of Silent Reading.

Her stomach twisted into knots, because she could have been in trouble for any number of things - copying on a multiplications test, tripping Ricky Connelly into the mud on purpose, drawing pictures on the bathroom stall doors. But when she got to the principal's office, she saw Clara walking there, too, and Clara never did _anything_ to get in trouble. Then she saw her grandmother standing by the receptionist desk, and she realized something was really, really wrong.

Alexander Vause was killed in the early early morning when his car ran off the road. For his youngest daughter, his death knocked the sun right out of the sky.

* * *

Her mother got remarried less than a year later, to a man named Tim who was twelve years older than her. He was a professor, and they moved out of their small house and into his, which had two stories and a basement besides. Her dad's records were stored in the basement until Diane dragged them upstairs and hid them under her bed.

Tim was nice and good but he just didn't _like_ Diane and that never changed. She didn't make herself likable, true, but she was nine years old and grieving and hating him for not being her father.

Her mom stopped being her mom and became his wife instead, and she loved Diane but she didn't like her either, not anymore.

Clara was the last to stop liking her. She held on for a few years, until Diane was maybe thirteen, and then Clara started hating her for something she couldn't even help: the way boys stared and flirted and flocked to her, the way girls invited her to every birthday party and sleepover. The fact that she was pretty and cool and could make everyone who didn't live in their house love her.

She fell in and out of love dozens of times, with boys who played instruments or rode motorcycles or filled sketchbooks with wild anger. She loved them all for how much they loved her, for how wanted they made her feel.

But more than anything, through it all, she loved music.

When Diane was sixteen, Clara got accepted to college on a partial academic scholarship, and Tim bought her a new car as a graduation gift, giving her old, used one to Diane.

Two weeks later she drove away, her father's record collection in the trunk of the car, and never came back.

* * *

She knew a boy from town, an ex-not-_quite_-boyfriend, who'd graduated three years before and now worked upstate at a stadium music venue. She stayed with him and slept with him for three weeks, seeing every concert that passed through.

Diane called her mom a week after she left, ready for a fight, to stubbornly insist she _wouldn't_ come home. But her mom didn't even ask her to.

"We've tried with you, Diane. I can't do it anymore. You're hellbent on making mistake after mistake, and I've never known how to stop you. You're just like your father..._wild_. I just pray it doesn't kill you the way it did him."

"What?"

What what _what_?

Diane's relationship with her father was forever frozen; she had never see him with anything but hero worshipping, eight year old eyes.

She didn't want to know more. She didn't want to change the story of her dad. So when her mother didn't clarify, Diane didn't push. She hung up the phone, and she went back stage and smoked pot with some roadies until she stopped feeling nauseous.

At a Rolling Stones show she met a group of girls, mostly a few years older than her, traveling with the road crew, following the band. Diane left with them, on a crew members tour bus, leaving her car in her old boyfriend's garage and telling him he could use it in the meantime.

For the next year and a half, she lived like that, from concert to concert, city to city, following tours or sticking around venues until someone's crew offered to take them along. Life was sex and drugs and most of all the rock and roll, most of all the _music, _that pure concert euphoria that brought her back to life almost every night.

Then she met Lee Burley.

He was famous and he was sexy and he was talented and he chose _her_. She never ever has to change the story of how they started, because it was as simple as that: he saw her, and he wanted her. She was backstage with some of the other girls, they'd gotten in with some journalists, had watched the show from the wings. Lee walked right up to her - his eyes didn't even graze anyone else - and said hi.

She spent the night in his hotel suite.

And three months worth of nights after that.

She rode on the main tour bus, and the other girls rode with the crew. They were jealous, and Diane basked in it; her sister's jealousy had always made her feel guilty, but she was done with that. She was cool, she was chosen, she was loved.

Until the missed period and stomach bug she couldn't shake and the positive sign on a drugstore test.

Lee was high when she told him, blissfully chilled out on heroin, and she didn't realize until she'd already started. He declared it no big deal, told her it'd work out, and then reminded her of his girlfriend back home.

The next morning, he didn't wake her up in time to leave with the bus. There was an envelope of cash and no note; it made her feel dirty and used up and abandoned, and she knew before she even left the hotel room that everyone else was gone, too.

She called Clara and begged until she wired her the money for a bus ticket, back to the city with her ex-almost-boyfriend and her car still parked in his garage. She drove home from there and showed up at her mom and Tim's house, hoping to stay for awhile before the reason for her abrupt return was made obvious, but Clara already told them and her mother wouldn't even let her in house, just gave her pity eyes and said _You wanted to be on your own._

Hence the cheap motel. Hence the diner job. Hence scouring Goodwill and garage sales for baby gear. Hence stealing the newest Death Maiden album, then breaking it into jagged vinyl pieces with her bare hands.

Hence the hospital kicking her out the same day Alex is born, because she doesn't have insurance and can't pay for a single night.

* * *

Alex Vause spends her first night alive at a homeless shelter.

Diane's been there the past three nights, since the motel kicked her out, but now she keeps having to take Alex outside when she cries, sitting in a car packed with everything they own to nurse.

Panic is starting to flip her insides over. She is not equipped for this. This was never what her life was supposed to look like.

Alex won't settle, so Diane reclines the front seat and holds her against her chest, rubbing her back and anxiously singing _Hey Jude_ and _Dear Prudence _until the wishing her dad was here is making her cry harder than the baby, too hard to sing.

(Years later, she doesn't need to add those details to the story. Eighteen, alone and homeless with a newborn she's supposed to protect - it tells the story for her.)

* * *

Diane stops by the diner, just to visit and have somewhere to go, and Jodi looks immediately concerned and tells her she should be careful taking the baby out in public for the first six weeks. So Diane closes her mouth and doesn't mention where she's been staying, that all she has is public.

For the next few days, she's terrified to get out of the car.

When Alex is a week old, Diane drives the three hours to Clara's college town. She has to stop at a gas station halfway there and ask strangers for money; a middle aged woman with two kids peering out of her van's backseat looks back and forth between Diane and the baby, and when Diane earnestly tells her she's just trying to get home to her parents, the woman swipes her credit card and fill up the gas tank.

She goes to Clara's off campus apartment and Clara groans like she's been _really hoping_ this wouldn't happen. She makes a face when she hears the baby's name, and she'll barely even look at her.

They talk in circles for awhile.

"You know I have roommates, right? Roommates with _classes_ and _exams_ and we can't have a _newborn_ \- "

"Clara. We've been living in a _car_."

"That's your own fault - "

"Right, if only Mom and Tim were paying for _my_ apartment."

"If you'd have stayed at home and gone to college they would have!"

"I've been working, but I had to buy all this baby stuff and the diapers and the clothes...and now I can't get a job because I can't pay for daycare."

"Go on welfare, Di, that's what it's for."

"I don't know how."

"God, of _course_ you don't, you're a high school drop out..."

"If you could just talk to Mom - "

"Trust me, Mom doesn't want anything to do with..._this_."

In the end, Clara can't quite bring herself to kick them out on the streets. She tells Diane she can stay for a week, _only_ a week, and if the baby bothers her roommates they'll have to leave sooner.

So Diane sleeps on the couch and rushes into the hallway anytime Alex wakes up crying. Luckily, she's not prone to long, screaming crying jags, always quieting as soon as she gets what she needs. From what Diane can tell, she's an easy baby, like she's already learned to make herself adaptable.

Clara's roommates, two other college juniors, are the opposite of angry about the intrusion; they love cooing over the baby, and they pepper Diane with questions.

"And the father is really _Lee Burley_?"

"Oh, yeah. No question."

"Was it like...a one night stand?"

"Oh, no way, I was traveling with him for...fuck, I don't even know, about three months I guess. See?"

She proffers the Polaroid again, her forever proof. Across the apartment in the kitchen, Clara glowers, left out and jealous once again.

"Oh my _God_."

"How did that even happen?!"

And Diane learns that she can shape the story.

She tells them that he was famous and he wanted her and she was only having fun, living a wild, glamorous life these girls will never come close to.

"Does he know about the baby?"

"Nah, here's the thing...Lee's a total fucking junkie."

"_Really_?"

"No way."

"Full blown heroin addict. So, you know...not the best father."

So she makes herself sound desirable and exciting and, most importantly, in control. She remakes a past where she was noble and smart and brave, going it alone by choice.

* * *

Clara's college circle is full of upper middle class, bleeding heart liberal arts kids, and that ends up being helpful . One of her roommates is a sociology major who's logged volunteer hours at Human Services, and she sets Diane up with an employee who helps her apply for aid. Another one of Clara's friends gets her a part-time job, a few days a week swiping student meal cards as they enter the dining hall. She's just sitting in a chair in the entrance vestibule, and Clara's friend says it's okay for her to set a baby carrier in a chair beside her.

Clara still kicks her out after a week is up, sending her off with money that she insists won't be a regular thing.

"If Mom even found out I was giving it to you, she'd freak."

"It's fine, I'll have the checks coming soon..."

"And you know, I'm trying to save my own money now. They don't pay for _everything_."

"_Fine_, I already fucking said okay."

"And I'll do you a favor and not tell Mom what you named her."

"No, thanks. You should tell her."

"You really have no idea, do you? About Dad - "

"I don't care. Mom left me standing on the fucking porch when I came home. Wouldn't even let me in the house. And when I was living in my car with her grandkid, she didn't take my calls. Dad would _never_ have done that to me." She looks down at Alex, settled into her secondhand carrier, sucking on her fingers. She feels her whole heart soften. "And I'd never do that to _her_. No matter what bad stuff she does." She looks back at Clara, eyes flashing and fierce. "_You're _the one who can't understand."

"I'm twenty-one," Clara snaps. "I'm not _supposed_ to understand what it's like to be a mom yet. If _you_ weren't such a - " She stops herself, black eyed and angry, but it doesn't matter. Diane hears it, anyway, not for the first time; the first time was a night she snuck in past curfew her freshmen year of high school, thinking her sister was asleep, until the murmured, bitter hiss of _slut _came slicing across the bedroom.

"Thanks for all your help," Diane says finally. "I won't bother you again."

(Sometimes, later, she leaves Clara out of the story. It depends on the day, whether or not she mentions her older sister's money or the week they stayed in her apartment. Even when she does tell it, Diane makes sure not to leave out how reluctant Clara was, how clearly she needed to be thanked and acknowledged. Diane's story isn't one of forgiveness.)

* * *

The job only lasts two months, because once Diane forgets to pump enough and has to abandon her post to feed Alex in a bathroom. Apparently letting five minutes worth of college students flow in without losing a prepaid meal is a fireable offense.

And the subsidized housing or long term women's shelters on the list Clara's roommate gave her have at least year long waiting lists to get in.

So it does not solve her problems. But it is a tiny starting point.

Sometimes Diane worries she isn't the best thing for Alex, but she has no doubt that Alex is the best thing for her. Her daughter is all big eyes and nonsense babbling and flailing fists, and every day Diane discovers new pockets inside her heart, holding more love than she'd have ever guessed could fit.

She lugs her dad's record player and tape deck into a few crappy motels and, finally, their new apartment. She dances around the rooms with Alex on her hip. Sometimes she sings The Beatles; sometimes she can't, so she sings songs that only belong to her, songs she's heard live, played by musicians she's met or even flirted with.

She goes around to daycare centers in town to ask for a job, thinking she's being so clever, but none of them are hiring. So she stretches her welfare checks are thin as they can go; sometimes she can't eat real meals for days because Alex is outgrowing her clothes too fast, and it takes hours of picking through Goodwills and church thrift stores to find things that fit.

* * *

The other mothers at the park think she's a babysitter, and she sees the way their faces pinch and sour when they realize she's not.

She's sitting alone, perched on an overturned plastic bucket just outside the sandbox, her legs, clad in ripped jeans, sprawled in front of her, hands deep in the pockets of her leather jacket. She's watching Alex, with a look of intense concentration, toddle across the sand. She's getting proficient at walking across the dingy thinning carpet of their apartment, but sand seems to be providing more of a challenge, and after four steps she goes down, hard.

Diane's muscles tense and she leans forward a little, ready to sweep over and comfort, but there's no need. Alex doesn't cry easily; she's a wiley, stubborn little thing, who's now staring darkly at the ground beneath her feet as though it's obviously to blame.

Alex seems to give up on mobility for the time being, staying safely on the ground, shifting her attention instead to the pile of toys Diane had put in front of her. She mumbles "Mama" around her pacifier.

"Right here, baby," Diane answers habitually; most of the time, Alex just likes to say the word.

There's a tiny blonde girl around Alex's age in the corner of the sandbox whose eyes are trained in Alex's general vicinity; Alex turns her head, seems to notice, and extends her fist, clutched around a tiny stuffed bear in her direction. Whether it's an offer or not, the blonde girl makes a delighted grab and yanks it away.

"Sweetheart, _no_..." There is a snapping of fingers and just like that the girl's mother is there, plucking the toy out of her daughter's hands and dropping it onto the sand before sweeping the kid up in her arms. "We don't touch that, we don't know where that's been."

Diane watches the mother hurry away, for some reason feeling the need to move her daughter out of the sandbox, and Diane feels heat fan out in her gut. Because yes, the toy, like any other toy, has probably been in the dirt and sand and on the floor and in a toddler's gummy mouth, but somehow she knows that isn't what the woman meant.

"Uppity bitch," Diane mutters just for Alex to hear, watching the woman return to the benches full of other older, suburban mothers, all glancing over at her with unconcealed suspicion.

Her daughter is her favorite person in the entire world, and Diane tells her that all the time, but sometimes she is so fucking lonely that it makes her feel crazy. She would almost be desperate enough to call her sister, but Clara graduated college (in a ceremony less than ten miles from Diane's apartment, which she wasn't invited to) and moved somewhere else.

So she talks to her not-even-two-year-old like she's expecting answers. Their days are constant, curse laden monologues, and Alex watches her with solemn eyes and full attention, like some silent therapist.

In a year and a half, she can send Alex to one of the public preschool programs she'd looked up at the library, and then Diane can get a job and make consistent money and interact with the world again.

But before that happens, she meets Beth.

(For the rest of her life, Diane always always _always_ tells it so Beth is a hero in the story.)

She gets evicted from the apartment, and she sells her dad's acoustic guitar and one box of records and checks into a motel with the cash, sick to her stomach the whole day.

Beth works at the hotel, cleaning rooms, and she sees Diane walking Alex back and forth across the outdoor balcony on the second day. She seems to take one look at Diane and instantly understand the exact state of her entire life.

She gets Diane a job cleaning alongside her, and assures her the manager doesn't even have to know that her daughter is toddling around the rooms while they do it. Even though Beth is at least ten years older than Diane, she is also loud and irreverently funny and instantly comfortable with anyone. It makes Diane remember she used to be like that, too.

* * *

She sends Alex to preschool and gets a second job waiting tables, glad to have tips again. She's _good_ at waitressing, good at knowing when to flirt or wink or just turn on a more wholesome brand of charm.

She is pretty. She is likable. That has always been true.

Her lunch break is spent picking Alex up from school, and then Diane brings her to the restaurant and settles her in a corner booth with crayons and paper and a stack of library books. The manager is a fifty year old man, and she always touches his arm for too long and laughs too much at his dumb jokes, so he never gives her shit for letting Alex take up a table all night long.

Every time Diane walks by that part of the dining area, she catches her daughter's eye and Alex lights all the way up, every single time, then giggles when Diane makes a silly face - crossed eyes, stuck out tongue, scrunched nose and pursed lips. She waves at other waitresses who walk by and wink at her, and she's hardly ever a problem. Barely four years old, Alex is already good at keeping herself still and quiet. She has spent her life in one room apartments or hotel rooms, and she has learned not to demand much.

But one night Diane's taking the order of some family, a mom and dad two boys and a girl, all three of the kids occupied with some toy or book on top of the table, when suddenly Diane hears floating up at her, a familiar rising lilt to the question, "Mommy?"

Her cheeks flame and her pencil freezes, because Alex _knows_ she's not supposed to do this, but Diane glances down to see her daughter craning her neck to look up at her. "Babe, go sit down, I'll be right there," she whispers as though they draws less attention.

"But I'm bored," Alex says, less of a whine than accusation.

Diane flicks an apologetic look back at her customers; the married couple are exchanging a look, probably wondering what kind of waitress has to bring her kid into work, what kind of _mother_ does.

She sharpens her voice. "_Alex_. Go sit."

"But - "

"You _cannot_ bother me while I'm working! Go sit down _right now," _Her voice comes out like someone else's, some middle aged disciplinarian, not a twenty-two year old at all. She sounds like her mother.

Alex's little face pinches in confusion, but she turns and runs back to her booth without a second look back. Diane's heart follows her a few paces, even as she turns back to the table with a smooth smile and an, "I'm so sorry about that." Then, for no reason at all, she lies, "Regular sitter cancelled on me last minute. You know how it is."

A few minutes later she slides into the space beside Alex in her booth. Alex cuts her eyes over, then returns her gaze to her library book without further acknowledgement. There's something so willful and _adult_ about the gesture that Diane is briefly unsettled.

"Hey," Diane bends her head low and tucks a strand of hair that's come loose from Alex's ponytail behind her ear. "I'm sorry I yelled."

Alex doesn't answer. Finally, preemptively defensive, she asks, "Am I in trouble?"

"No, no, babe, of course not. I shouldn't have gotten mad. I was just worried _I'd_ get in trouble."_  
_

Finally, Alex turns her head, face scrunched up, perplexed. "Why?"

Kids, she knows, are prone to _why_ questions, but Alex's always have purpose. She's so damn smart; the teacher at the preschool program, which is run out of one of the elementary schools, even said Diane could put her in kindergarten a year early, since she knew how to read before she even got there. But Diane had flat out refused, not wanting to cut out even one year. Fourteen years until high school graduation still seems like a long way away; enough time for some miracle to occur to allow for college.

"Well..." Diane trails off, not sure how to answer the question. The truth is, she wouldn't have gotten in trouble. Maybe a shaved down tip, at most. That wasn't the problem. It's just that there's some part of her that's ashamed of this arrangement, embarrassed that she is _this_ person, _this_ mother, living _this_ life.

"You're right. It was stupid," she says finally.

"Yup," Alex agrees blithely, which makes Diane smirk.

She pokes her in the side, tickling her ribs. "You and me, we don't care what judgey assholes think, do we?"

Alex squirms away, finally grinning. "Did you know Miss Talmon says not to say _ass_?"

"I didn't know that. But I'm not surprised." Diane pokes her again. "I told you that word's just for at home."

"I forgot. And also about _damn_."

"Whoops."

Alex makes her eyes bigger. "Can I have a milkshake?"

Wiley little kid. Knows just when to use guilt.

"Sure. Let me see...chocolate?"

"_No_."

"Vanilla?"

"_No!_"

"Peanut butter?"

"_Mommy__." _

Diane winks, then kisses the top of Alex's head. "Strawberry milkshake coming right up."

* * *

When Alex is in first grade, her teacher sends a note home demanding a parent teacher conference; she's impatient with Diane before they even meet, having apparently tried to call four different times to schedule a meeting, except Diane's never home and they don't have an answering machine.

Someone covers for her at Wal-Mart, where she's been working during the day before the restaurant, so she can be at the elementary school when class lets out. Alex loves it, delighted at the novelty of seeing her mother right after school instead of riding the bus home and letting herself into the apartment, as she's been doing since starting kindergarten.

She sits in the hall outside her classroom with a book while Diane goes in to meet Mrs. Barrett. The older woman looks at her, and Diane can see her cataloguing details - the Wal Mart shirt and name tag, the fact that she's only twenty-four, maybe even her hair and makeup and jewelry - and this look of _understanding_ flickers across her features, like now everything makes sense: Alex's patched up ill fitting clothes, her inability to entirely delete curse words from her school vocabulary, and, yes, the lack of answering machine.

Diane lifts her chin, already prickling with defenses, as she sits down across from the teachers desk. "So, is there a problem with Al, or is this just a regular thing?" She'd asked Alex if she'd gotten in trouble for something, but she'd insisted nothing's gone on.

"Well, Miss Vause...I do actually have some concerns with Alex's academic progress."

That's the _last_ thing Diane's expecting.

"You're kidding me," she says, deadpan.

Mrs. Barrett raises her eyebrows, surprised. "Not at all..." She spreads a row of papers on the desk between them. "These are her weekly math assessments...we put a series of simple addition problems on the board, and the children have fifteen minutes to answer." There's a sea of red X's. The teacher spreads a fresh row on top of those; more red marks, this time over sentences. "And these are primarily for handwriting practice, copying down a sentence...but as you can see, there are real red flags here."

Diane scans one of the sentences; it's nonsense, a string of unrelated words and, a couple of times, just letters.

She shakes her head, dismissive. "This doesn't make any sense...she's been reading since she was three." Alex has always loved the library, loves getting to leave with a stack of books, anything _new_. It's always been an easy, free place to go and fill afternoons.

"We do notice that she does fine on homework problems..." Barrett hands a stack of that over for Diane's perusal. "And of course we understand your instinct to help your child, but - "

"I didn't help her with these," Diane snaps back, more defensive than she intended. "I didn't even know first graders _had_ homework."

More understanding and accusations flash in the teacher's eyes, but she doesn't address that, just says, "She also does fine on her seat work, but it's obviously much easier for the kids to... get help from each other on that."

Diane bristles, picking through the bullshit politeness. "My daughter doesn't fuc- freakin' _cheat_."

"Well in any case..." Mrs. Barrett taps one of the nonsensical sentences. "With this caliber of work, we'd like to look into getting her tested for any learning difficulties...and she may benefit from hanging back in first grade an extra year."

"Are you fucking kidding me?" This time Diane can't stop herself, and the teacher pulls her lips in tight. "You know her preschool teacher wanted to put her in kindergarten a year _early_? And now you want her to be held back? Nuh-uh."

"Well, I can't speak for her preschool teacher, of course..."

Diane knows something's wrong here; Alex is _smart_, smarter than she ever was. "Hold on..."

She gets up and stalks to the door of the classroom, ignoring the teacher's placating voice behind her. She leans into the hallway; Alex looks up and grins at her. "Can we go home now?"

"Not yet, babe. Can you come in for a minute?"

Alex's face darkens at the prospect of entering her classroom after school hours. Long suffering, she rolls her eyes. "What'd I do?"

"Nothing. Everything's okay, just come on in. And bring your book."

Reluctantly, Alex trudges after her, walking up to Mrs. Barrett's desk. The teacher smiles warmly at her, and Alex lifts her eyes to Diane, awaiting instruction.

Diane flips one of the failed math assessments over to its blank side and grabs a random pencil from a tin cup on the desk, handing it to Alex and flipping through her book, pointing at a random sentence. "Al, can you let Mrs. Barrett copy this down?"

Alex makes a face, quite obviously finding this extra school work entirely unfair, but she takes the pencil and quickly writes the sentence, correctly.

She _knew_ it, she did, but relief spills over Diane's insides anyway. She starts to ask a math question, but realizes she has no idea what math first graders are supposed to know. "What's, um, two plus three?"

Alex looks at her mom like she may have gone slightly crazy. "_Five_. Duh."

"Alex, honey, can you go sit at your desk for a second?" Mrs. Barrett interrupts, a thoughtful frown on her face.

Alex sighs, swinging around to look her mom as though to say _Do I have to_? Diane nods her along, just as confused; she has no theories to explain this discrepancy. She's just glad for Alex's proof.

Alex takes her time shuffling down the aisle, then practically slumps down in her desk, completely and blatantly over this. Diane bites back a smirk. Patiently, Mrs. Barrett writes a quick line of letters on the board, then moves out of the way, turning back to Alex and pointing at a big W scrawled in chalk. "Can you see what letter this is?"

Alex squints, leaning forward on the desk. Finally, a question in her voice, she says, "U?"

Mrs. Barrett keeps pointing. Alex gets only one right, and even then she doesn't seem sure.

The teacher, though, is beaming, happy to have found a solution. "She needs _glasses_, that's all it is." She seems entirely guilt free, like she wasn't practically calling Alex dumb or a cheater ten minutes before. Then, frowning, she asks, "She didn't have her eyes checked in kindergarten? Our nurse usually does it."

"Well, she changed schools part way through the year so..." Diane trails off uncomfortably; they'd changed after a move, after a cheaper apartment in a different district. She doesn't want to get into that, or the lack of consistent pediatric visits. She's already thinking about the cost of an optometrist, of prescription glasses, and wishing she didn't have to.

To distract herself, she walks over to Alex, touching the top of her head and tilting her neck back gently so she's looking up at her. "Why didn't you say you couldn't see the board?"

Alex shrugs. "I thought that's just what it looked like."

Diane snorts out a laugh and pulls Alex to her feet, wrapping an arm around her and drawing her protectively against her side, giving Mrs. Barrett a look, several shades of defiant. "I assume we're good here?"

The teacher has the grace to look apologetic. "Of course. I'd like to pull Alex aside tomorrow and do a quick assessment, so I know how she's really doing, but none of this will count against her. And we can move her to the front row for the next few days, until you can get her in for an appointment."

Diane nods and thanks her, groaning internally. Alex gives a very relieved goodbye and practically drags Diane out of the classroom.

Alex is quiet in the car on the way home; Diane catches a glimpse of her broody expression in the rearview mirror. "Hey, what's wrong?"

"Nothing." Then, immediately, "Do I _really_ have to wear glasses? Like...all the time, forever?"

"That's usually how it works, babe," she teases.

Alex groans.

"What, you don't want to _see_?"

"I mean, _yeah_. But I don't want glasses."

"How come?"

"It's like, a nerdy thing, right?" She scowls down at her balled up fists. "I'll get made fun of even more."

Diane's heart twists at the _even more_; Alex never whines about it, but Diane knows anyway. She never talks about school friends. She winces dishearteningly every time Diane has to tape together a fresh hole in her jacket, add another patch of random fabric to her jeans. And she has hardened, somehow, in ways that are hard to pinpoint, as though Alex is developing armor that's hard to shed even at home.

The armor's on now; Alex's face is knotted up with anger, eyes flared in a sort of _don't dare feel sorry for me _expression. So Diane just puffs out a skeptical noise, like her daughter's said something silly. "Fuck anyone who makes fun of you for wearing glasses. You hear how dumb that sounds? You're a nerd just because your eyes are bad?"

"My eyes are _bad?"_

"Oh, yeah. They're kind of horrible, babe. I don't know how the hell you didn't notice." Alex laughs a little at that. Diane looks back to smile at her. "Don't even worry about it. Your glasses are gonna be cool just because you're wearing them, Al."

Her smile drops. "No one else thinks I'm cool."

"Well, of course they don't," Diane flings back dismissively, ignoring the drop kicks going on in her chest. "Because if _you're_ cool, that means they aren't. They don't wanna admit that."

"Why does it mean that?"

"Oh, c'mon, Al, you know this...are you anything like those little brats at school?"

"_No," _ she answers vehemently.

"Well there ya go. If _you're_ the cool one, and they're nothing at all like you, then obviously they aren't cool, right?"

A smile spreads slowly across Alex's face as she turns this logic over, accepting it. She nods as though assuring herself. "_Right_."

* * *

But Diane worries.

Especially when Alex hits third grade and it still hasn't gotten better, when she still isn't including even small friendships in her daily recaps of her days at school.

Diane knows it's all her fault.

A lot of it is the money, the lack of it, Diane knows that, knows Alex gets made fun of and avoided for her clothes and her free lunches and maybe even the fact that her mom serves food to some of her classmates' families. But it can't just be that. Her own family hadn't had much, at least not until her mom remarried, and she had gone to school in Clara's hand me downs that didn't quite fit, but Diane still _always _had friends around. She'd been a kid who took the Best Friend title very seriously, as early as kindergarten.

She wanted that for Alex, but she worries she's screwed her up: they'd spent too much time with just to two of them, or she'd made Alex spend too much time all on her own, entertaining herself in a booth at Friendly's or a hotel room or an empty apartment. She'd failed to facilitate any playdates when Alex was in preschool or kindergarten.

And now Alex is eight years old and she spends every afternoon and a lot of evenings alone in the apartment, which maybe wouldn't be so bad if she was hanging out with friends at school. She is living quiet, lonely days.

Diane remembers when Alex was born, promising herself she'd be enough for her.

But she knows now it doesn't actually work like that.

* * *

She gets behind on rent and they get evicted again only a month and a half into Alex's fourth grade year. They stay at Beth's place for a few weeks, Alex on the couch and Diane sleeping on Beth's ancient floral recliner. Those two years of traveling on tour buses that drove through the night serve her well, now; Diane can always sleep anywhere.

She finds a new place that will take them and sweet talks an old sort of boyfriend (if letting him take her to dinner once a month and fucking him in his apartment while Alex slept over at Beth's counted as a _boyfriend_...it was the closest she'd come in the last nine years, with a handful of men) into moving her smattering of Goodwill and thrift store furniture in his pickup truck.

The bedroom is a little bigger than the last place, and once again she lets Alex have it, though they both share the closet; she wants her to be able to say she has her own room.

It's in a new school district, and after the first day Diane tries to sound casual when she asks if Alex made any new friends. In answer, she mentions the name of one girl who was nice to her, and Diane's heart cartwheels in relief. That's more than Alex has _ever_ said about anyone at school, but in the following weeks she doesn't mention this _Piper_ girl again.

Especially not the day Diane picks her up from school between shifts, which she rarely gets to do, and Alex ends up hurling her tennis shoes out the window, spitting out the word _Bobo_'s like it tastes bad.

This is the first time she's ever so much as complained about anything Diane's given her; Alex sits there in her patched jeans and secondhand jacket with duct tape on the sleeve over a sweater with safety pins holding the shoulder together, and yet her shoes with the wrong name brand are declared the worst offender.

Diane nearly breaks into an impatient admonishment about how just hard and how much she has to work to even pay for those shoes, but she bites it back because it's not Alex's fault at all that this is her life. And because if Alex is finally crossing this line of complaining, it's because someone else shoved her over.

Sure enough: "Jessica Wedge says they're lame."

"So _fuck_ Jessica Wedge." This is always Diane's advice, just _fuck 'em_. Forget the conflict resolution teachers spout about; there is no changing the assholes of this world. She doesn't want to teach Alex to get along with them, she wants to teach her not to care. To know she's better than anyone who makes her feel like she's not.

"They _all _make fun of me," Alex bursts out. "They call me Pigsty."

For a second, Diane feels beaten down by her own hurt and helplessness, because nothing she can give Alex can combat the insults of mean spirited kids. She will never be able to offer her daughter a point of pride. She can tell Alex she's cool every day of her life but she cannot make her _feel_ it with cheap clothes and a tiny apartment and a mom who's just a waitress or a cashier.

All she can give her is a story.

"Did you tell them who your father is?"

She never wanted a big moment where Alex finally asked the question, dreaded having some momentous reveal, so she's let Alex grow up knowing the basic facts about who her father is. She'd stick a a Death Maiden song on mixtapes and point out when "your father" started some drum solo. She dropped in casual stories about when the two of them were together, some concert she'd watch before meeting him a dressing room.

Lee Burley didn't give his daughter anything at all. So Diane _takes_ from him, takes his name and his music and his cool and gives it to Alex to add to her armor. Daughter Of A Rock God means so much more than Daughter Of A Waitress.

It's Diane's story to tell, so she gives Alex the one she needs in that moment.

(Years and years later, she'll wish that she hadn't.)

* * *

"What are you looking at over there?"

"Nothing," Alex mutters, but not like she really heard the question.

"Well, get over here, let's play some cards."

Diane's working her Saturday gig at Ben and Jerry's, which predictably is a dead zone in the middle of winter, even in the fairly busy strip mall. She'd brought Alex for company, but she seems more interested in whatever's going on outside.

Because there are literally no customers, Diane walks from behind the counter and walks quietly up behind her daughter, following her gaze.

There's a little blonde girl about Alex's age sitting on a bench outside the nearby movie theater. "She in your class?"

Alex nearly jumps out of her skin, nearly dropping her ice cream cone. "Geez, Mom, you scared the shit out of me."

"Sorry," Diane ruffles her hair then sits her chin on top of Alex's head, still watching. "Do you know her?"

"Kind of." Then, hesitant, "That's Piper."

"Oh, yeah?" The girl she'd said was nice her first day of school. "Go say hi."

Alex pulls away to look up at her, uncharacteristically uncertain. "You think I should?"

"Sure you should. But maybe finish the ice cream first, it's fucking freezing out."

"No." Alex leans away from the window, looking suddenly purposeful. "I'll go now, she might be about to leave."

"At least put on your gloves."

A few minutes later, Diane backs up a few feet from the window and angles herself so she can see outside but the kids won't be able to see her. She watches them talk, their nine year old expressions almost comically serious. It goes on for awhile, so finally Diane makes herself back away and return to the counter, grinning in relieved delight.

When Alex comes back in, ice cream apparently discarded, her eyes are practically bursting with the smile she's trying really hard to bite back. Diane figures out the _don't make a big deal_ vibe pretty quickly, so she turned her back and starts wiping down the counters to hide her own smile.

(Diane doesn't know yet, but this will be the beginning of a whole new story.)

* * *

**A/N:** _Please know I'm aware the length of this is 100% ridiculous. I always wanted to do a Diane POV look at Young Blood, but I made the mistake of waiting until after I wrote "With or Without You". Not only did I miss writing Diane in that fic, but it turned my Diane emotions on full blast. Writing that verse gave me so much headcanon about her character, and this essentially turned into an ode to her, especially in this first half. Next up is all about Diane watching Piper and Alex as they grow up together. _


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Young Blood covers more time than I thought, apparently, and I'm all about the deleted scenes. So I decided to break the YB section of this (which originally was supposed to be the whole fic, before I got all distracted with my chapter one backstory) into two chapters.

* * *

Alex has a brand new way of smiling, and that's the only way Diane can think of to describe it. Like she's added to her happiness repertoire.

Diane has always taken pride in the way she and Alex really _talk_ to each other, the way her daughter doesn't answer queries about her day at school with generic _fine_'s, but for the first time, Alex has stories instead of simply grievances. There are glimpses of good moments, and only now that she has them to share does Diane realize how few there must have been before.

It breaks her heart a little, but it also makes Diane love this kid Piper, before she even meets her, for changing it.

* * *

It's one of Diane's late nights, so she gets home after two. Alex's bedroom door is cracked open, and Diane habitually leans in to check on her.

Unexpectedly, Alex's voice floats through the darkness. "Mom?"

"Hey, baby, why're you still awake?"

"Can I spend the night at Piper's Friday?" Diane can hear in her voice how much she's been dying to ask. "She invited me today."

"Sure you can." Diane crosses over to the bed, kicking off her shoes and sliding onto the side of the bed, giving Alex a sideways hug hello. "Would you just take the bus home with her after school?"

"Yeah. You just have to write a note to the bus driver, saying it's okay." Alex nestles against her side, sliding over a little to give Diane more room. Even in the sleepy murmur of her voice, Diane can hear her smile.

"I think I can handle that." She grins, teasing, "Mainly cause I'll get to steal your bed for the night."

"You can sleep here tonight, if you want," Alex offers magnanimously, making even more space as if to make it more enticing.

Diane hasn't eaten since lunch; she usually has a middle of the night dinner when she gets home, but Alex is a warm, sleepy weight against her side, bare feet scrambling for warmth under her legs, so Diane weaves her fingers lazily through her daughter's hair and settles into the bed.

* * *

Diane pulls up in front of Piper's house the morning after the sleepover and her stomach pitches reliably forward.

She hadn't been expecting an equivalent of their place, of course she hadn't, but this is more than simple picturesque, modest suburbia: this is country club territory, a slew of luxury homes with sprawling yards, set fairly far apart from each other simply because there's so much damn property.

Alex is clearly watching for her, because as soon as she pulls the car to the curb the front door opens and her daughter comes hurrying down the sidewalk, backpack slung over one shoulder, duffle bag in hand. There's a long, sloping stone walkway down to the road, so it takes a moment for Alex to get to the car and hurl herself inside. "Hey."

"Morning. You tell 'em thanks for having you?"

"Yeah." When the car just idles, Alex gives her a weird look. "Are we going?"

Diane rolls her eyes. "God, why the big rush? I don't get to meet Piper?"

"Not right _now_. Geez."

She finally pulls away from the curb. "You have fun?"

Alex's expression relaxes and she grins. "Yeah. It was really fun. We stayed up super late." Alex pauses, then adds, "She's got a trampoline. And a pool. I mean, it's not open now, but they have one."

"Were her parents nice?"

"Um..." Alex wrinkles her nose a little. "Yeah? I don't know if her mom likes me."

"Why?" Diane throws her a sharp look. "What did she say to you?"

"Nothing, I could just tell. But whatever, it's weird...her mom doesn't even _work_." Alex sounds mystified by the concept._  
_

Diane smiles dryly. "Must be nice."

"Piper said I can probably come again next weekend, if it's okay with you." Alex says, and for some reason the _wanting_ in her voice, so unfamiliar, makes Diane's throat narrow.

"Sure."

Now is the time to remind her that Piper's welcome at their apartment, too. Diane had _meant_ to remind her that. But this doesn't feel like a good moment. She's afraid Alex's reaction to the suggestion may embarrass them both.

* * *

She eventually does bring it up, gently, after Alex has had four sleepovers and a handful of after school visits, which Diane's hoping was enough time to get used to the Chapman house. But Alex's face still freezes at the idea of Piper coming over, and in the next moment her eyes skirt to the floor, mumbling something about _maybe_.

"Hey." Diane waits until Alex looks up. "I know they live in a huge fucking house. And the apartment's small - "

"It's not that," Alex says, quickly and loyally. "I just...there's not as much to do here."

"Oh, c'mon, you've got games. TV. Music."

At that, Alex frowns thoughtfully. "I don't even know if Piper's into music."

Diane smiles, dropping the needle onto whatever albums on the record player. "Most nine year olds don't know the cool stuff yet. You're lucky I started you early, babe."

Alex smiles back, but all she says is, "Maybe I'll make her a tape or something."

So another two months pass, with Alex spending one night of most weekends sleeping over at Piper's house. It takes some getting used to, being in the apartment for any amount of time without her there, but Alex is giving up many more hours of being home alone than she is of spending time with her mom, so mostly Diane's just grateful.

One evening Diane comes home to change and eat between shifts, and Alex is sitting on the couch looking broody.

"Rough day, Al?"

"No, it was fine." She looks up. "Piper wants to know if we can sleep over here this weekend. I don't know why."

"Ah..." Diane is quiet for a second. "Well, ya know I've told you she's welcome to."

"Okay." Alex sounds like she's been told about an upcoming doctor's appointment. "She'll probably come over Friday then."

"Sounds good." Diane hesitates, not sure if the unspoken problem is better off left that way. Finally, she walks over and drops a comforting kiss on the crown of Alex's head. Soft, she says, "It'll be fine, babe. Promise." She straightens up, biting her lip and hoping it's true, quelling the strange, instinctive desire to apologize for something.

* * *

She meets Piper for the first time when she comes home between shifts on Friday. She's a sweet, soft spoken little thing, who isn't giving any indication of being uncomfortable in her surroundings.

Diane can only stay a few minutes, but she leaves them food before taking off to her shift at Wal-Mart. She knows Piper's mom's cooked for them, every time, but surely kids like burgers and fries more.

She gets home a little after two; the TV is on, and Piper and Alex are asleep on opposite ends of the couch, their legs draped over each other in the middle.

Diane turns off the television, careful to stay quiet as she moves into the kitchen and makes a sandwich.

Before she moves into Alex's room to sleep, Diane grabs a blanket from the back of the couch and spreads it over the girls, smiling slightly to herself as she does. It hits her that this is the first time she's really seen Alex with another kid her age.

She skims her fingers gently through Alex's hair as she walks by and goes into the bedroom. She has to clear away the board games and cards spread all over the mattress.

The next morning, she spends more time with the kids before Piper goes home. Piper's still edging on the quiet sound, smiling shyly every time Diane addresses her directly, but she laughs easily, and when Alex starts telling about their night, Piper follows her through the conversation, eagerly chiming in details.

The best is how she looks at Alex like she's her favorite thing in the world, and Alex has the exact same expression. They're so_ easy_ together, and maybe there's nothing miraculous about that, but it feels that way to Diane, who's never seen Alex like this with anyone else. She can't get enough of it.

So when Piper leaves, and Alex turns to Diane and says, "You liked her, right?", she really, really means it when she says yes.

* * *

When the girls are in fifth grade, Diane gets a phone call in the middle of the day at work that she needs to come down to see the principal _now_.

Beth grins and says she'll cover for her. "What'd the kid do?"

Diane rolls her eyes. "They didn't say."

She finds Alex sitting in a chair in the front office, looking perfectly calm and content, like she's just happy to be getting a break from class. She does pull an apologetic face when she sees her mom. "Sorry you had to leave work."

Diane lifts an eyebrow. "What's going on?"

Alex shrugs like it's an impossibly complicated story, but then the principal comes out to shake Diane's hand and invite them both inside the office.

She and Alex sit next to each other in chairs across from the principal's desk. The setting makes Diane feel like _she's_ the one in trouble, and she tries to shake the feeling off as she asks, "So...what's the problem here?"

Principal Rollins, a man in his forties with a round, boyish face, directs a shrewd look at Alex. "Alex, you want to tell your mom why we had to call her down?"

Alex sighs. "I broke a window."

"_What_?"

"The _classroom_ window," the principal clarifies severely.

Diane looks at Alex, bewildered. "Why the hell would you do that?"

"It was an accident."

Diane turns the look on the principal. "If it was an accident why am I here?"

"Well, she _claims_ it was. But she and her friend were in the classroom alone, where they weren't supposed to be."

Before Diane can throw back something combative about unsupervised kids, Alex cuts her off, addressing the principal.

"I told you," Alex says flatly. "Piper couldn't find her notecards. She has to present this afternoon, it's her day. So when everyone went to PE, I stayed to help her look for a second. She couldn't find it in the cubbys or anything, and she was getting all freaked out and upset, so I started goofing off with the globe ball - "

"The what?"

Alex looks at Diane to answer, "The _globe _ball. It's just a kickball, but it looks like a globe. We use it for this geography game. _Anyway_. I was kicking it at the wall, trying to make Piper laugh or whatever, and it hit the window and I thought it'd bounce but it didn't."

She's lying. Diane's both alarmed at how good she is at it, and relieved that she can at least tell. Alex's voice is measured and calm, eye contact unwavering, and she doesn't sound remotely as though she's inventing this on the spot. However, she also doesn't sound even the slightest bit defensive or impatient, like she doesn't mind sitting here and telling the same story over and over.

Which for Alex means it must be bullshit.

The principal doesn't seem to be sure. He's squinting at her like something isn't clicking but he can't come up with a plausible alternate scenario. Finally, he just sighs and looks at Diane, who has a sudden stab of worry that they'll ask her to pay for the goddamn window. "We usually require a 3-5 day suspension for damaging school property."

Her jaw drops. "_Suspension_? Isn't that a little overdramatic?"

He ignores that. "Since it's Alex's first real discipline problem, and because it does seem to have been accidental, we can give her only two days, including today, as a warning. But we can't overlook the fact that she was somewhere she shouldn't have been, so we don't _really_ know what happened - "

"Is Piper gonna get in trouble?" Alex interrupts.

The principal looks surprised. "No, Alex, _she_ isn't the one who was breaking rules. She _asked_ Mrs. Beam if she could stay back and look for her notecards. See the difference?"

Alex nods, satisfied. "Okay."

Ten minutes later, Alex follows Diane to the car, seeming completely unperturbed by her recent suspension. As soon as the car doors close behind them, Diane gives her a look. "So what really happened with the window?"

Alex tries for an innocent expression. "What?"

"Al. I'm your mom. I know when the fuck you're lying, so come on. Out with it."

Rolling her eyes, Alex asks, "You won't tell the school, right?"

"Of course, I won't fucking tell the school, don't want you in even more trouble."

"I didn't break it. Piper did."

That's the last thing Diane's expecting. "_What_?"

"It was still mostly an accident."

"_Mostly_?"

"Yeah, you should _see_ Piper when she gets mad. She goes all Incredible Hulk or something. Throwing shit and hitting things. And she couldn't find her notecards -"

"What the hell are these notecards?"

"You _know_. For the stupid inventor thing." Diane remembers, then; they were all assigned an inventor to do research on. Alex has already done her presentation. "Hers is due today, and she couldn't find the cards. So of course she _completely_ freaked out, and when she still couldn't find them in her book bag she grabbed the ball and drop kicked it and it hit the window." Alex shrugs, like that's the whole story, case closed.

Diane waits, but when her daughter doesn't continue, she prompts impatiently, "You gonna answer the obvious question or do I have to ask?"

Alex gives her a blank look. "Huh?"

"Why did you tell the principal _you_ did it?"

"Well, first I told this random teacher who heard the glass break. _Then_ I told Principal - "

"_Alex_."

Alex scowls like she shouldn't have to explain this. "Piper's parents would've flipped. They used to ground her for a week every time she, like, had to turn a card in class. If she got _suspended, _we wouldn't get to hang out for _months_."

Diane's quiet for a moment, knowing that's probably true...but also well aware it's just as likely that a kid like Piper, with her PTO mom, wouldn't have gotten suspended on her first offense.

Alex is watching her now, seemingly waiting for approval. A few degrees less certain, she adds, "And I knew _I_ wouldn't get in trouble."

"You did get in trouble though, babe," Diane reminds her, a little tersely. "You got suspended."

Alex's eyes cloud slightly, looking taken aback by the lack of immediate support. "Yeah, but you know what I mean."

"Alex..." Diane stops, choosing her words carefully. "You're such a smart kid, babe. You do way better than I ever did in school. Teachers should be psyched to get you in a class, but they see shit like suspensions and they decide they already know what you're like." Alex glares down at her hands, and Diane adds, more gently, "I know it doesn't seem like it now, but it might have been worth missing a few weekends of hanging out with Piper."

"It wasn't just that," Alex says. Her voice and fists are tight.

Diane glances sideways at her. "What then?"

"Just...that teacher walked in and saw the window, and..." She looks up, finally, her eyes wide and earnest. "When Piper thought she was going to get in trouble, she just looked really, really scared."

As soon as Alex says it, Diane understands that as the real, most important reason. If a teacher came running when she heard glass break, Alex would have had a split second to decide to take the blame.

She's quiet for a moment, not sure if this is something she should be proud of but feeling proud anyway.

"I wish you were a _little_ more worried about getting in trouble," Diane finally says dryly. "But you're a good friend, babe. Pipes is lucky."

Alex ducks her head and smiles this tiny secret smile to herself, obviously pleased with the idea.

Two hours later, around 3:20, Alex carries the phone to the couch and sits it on her lap. It rings maybe five minutes later, and she snatches it up, not bothering with a greeting, just demanding, "Did you find your fucking cards or what?"

Diane smirks and turns the TV on mute, settling back on the couch and listening to Alex's half of the conversation.

"This is actually the part where you say _thank you_, Pipes."

...

"No, it wasn't."

...

"No, it _wasn't_."

...

"Oh, so you'll kick a ball through a window but you're not cool with lying?"

...

"Shut _up_. Jesus. Your parents wouldn't have let your leave the house for years if _you_ got suspended - "_  
_

...

"Yep, and tomorrow, too."

...

"Uh, that's a day and half of no school, it's a win/win."

...

"Oh my God, seriously, you have to stop. This is so boring. And you still haven't said thank you."

...

"That wasn't technically a thank you. But fine. Did you do your damn presentation or not?"

* * *

A few months later, Diane nearly ruins everything.

She's short on rent, and running out of ways to put off the landlord. This has happened before, so she does what she always does: warns Alex the moment eviction moves from possible to probable. Usually, Alex is unbothered by the prospect, accommodating and adaptable in the way she's always had to be.

Diane tells her on Friday morning, sitting on the bed while Alex moves around the room, getting ready for school. "Hey, listen, babe...I've been a little behind on the rent lately, and fuckin' Greg's been on my ass about it. Nothing's definite, just wanted to give you a heads up."

Alex slowly turns to face her, eyes narrow. "So we might have to move again?"

"Like I said, nothing for sure - "

The pitch of her voice leaps. "Do I have to change schools?"

"Not necessarily, it'll depend on where we could find a new place - "

"_No._" The force of Alex's voice shocks her. Alex's eyes are huge, face bricked up with anger. "No, I'm not going anywhere, can't you...can't you just _pay_ it? I don't get why you let this happen."

The fact that Alex is even arguing is so startling that for a second Diane doesn't clue into the reason. "Al, come on. You know they cut my hours at the hotel, and we had to get the car fixed - "

"But that's not fair!" Alex folds her arms suddenly, eyes glinting with defiance, trying to override the panic trembling in her voice, "I'm not going, I'm not changing schools, I'm _not_."

Guilt and understanding surges in Diane's chest, and her face softens. "Alex, you might not have to. And even if you do, ya know, you got maybe five more months of fifth grade and then next year you and Pipes'll be in middle school together no matter where we live in town."

That does nothing to appease her. Alex's eyes are glittering. "I _hate_ this!" It explodes out of her. "I hate that it's like this, that we're _always_..." Her voice wavers and she stops talking, looking away from Diane, staring at the wall with a determinedly furious expression that means she's trying not to cry. _  
_

"Al..." Diane's half off the bed, heading toward Alex, but she moves away, eyes on the floor.

"I gotta go to the bus."

She walks out of the bedroom, and it takes a few seconds for Diane to shake herself out of the aftershock and follow. Alex has her bookbag on and she's almost at the door.

"Alex." It takes her a second to turn around. "I'm sorry, baby."

It's the first time Diane's ever had to apologize.

Alex's face tightens, and she holds her mom's eyes for a second before leaving the apartment.

Diane sits down hard on the couch, her eyes prickling with tears.

She feels awful. Because of course Alex hates this, she has every right to. It's just the first time she's ever said it.

All day at work, she carries the guilt like stones in her stomach. Piper's supposed to spend the night at their apartment, so Diane won't be able to talk to Alex until at least tomorrow.

Alex is distant when Diane goes home to eat dinner between shifts, talking to her just enough so Piper doesn't notice something's wrong, and she seems relieved when Diane leaves again.

She gets back late and peeks into Alex's room. They're asleep in the twin bed, Alex's headphones resting on the pillow between them, tinny, distant music still coming through the speakers. Diane moves quietly through the room and gently lifts the walkman out of the bed, turning off the tape. The girls are sharing one pillow, their hair crisscrossing in the center. It's become a familiar sight, over the past year, but this time it makes Diane's chest constrict.

Alex has never complained about moving before because she's never been happy enough anywhere for it to matter. She doesn't ask for much; she grew up learning not to. And all she wants now is to keep her best friend.

Diane won't be able to stand herself if she can't give her daughter that simple thing, if she has to make Alex go back to long school days without a friendly interaction.

So the next morning, right after Piper goes home and Alex turns to her mom with an accusatory look, as if to say _See what you're taking away?_, Diane motions her over to the couch to talk.

"Listen..." She touches Alex's chin, forcing her to reluctantly look her in the eye. "I'm going to do everything I can to keep the apartment." Alex flinches away, tensing up again. "_But_. If I can't, this is what's going to happen: we're going to stay with Beth until we find a new place close enough so you won't have to change schools." Alex's eyes slowly track back to hers. Diane touches her hair, and this time Alex lets her. "I promise. Okay?"

Relief and something a little like shame breaks across Alex's face, and she nods. "Okay," her voice is small. "Thanks."

Diane slides closer and wraps an arm around Alex, relieved when she leans into her side. "I know it's no fun not knowing, baby. And I'm sorry about that. But I'll at least make sure you and Pipes get to stay together, okay?"

Alex is quiet for a moment, then says softly. "Did you know the fifth grade goes to Washington DC for a few days at the end of this year?"

"No, I didn't." Diane's stomach turns unpleasantly, already anticipating the disappointment. "Listen, Al - "

But Alex cuts her off, surprising her. "I knew I wouldn't be able to go. So...Piper's not going either."

Her heart pinches and swells simultaneously. "She isn't?"

"Nope." Alex is picking absently at a loose thread on the couch cushion. "I mean, she says she just doesn't want to, but I know she did until I said I wasn't."

Diane makes a mental note to bring Piper extra dessert from the restaurant next time. "You know what, babe?" She kisses the side of Alex's head. "She does something like that? I think you and Pipes woulda stayed friends even if you didn't see her every day."

Alex grins at that, until it abruptly falls away and her eyebrows furrow. "I still want to, though," she clarifies worriedly.

"I know ya do," Diane reassures her quickly. "And I promised, didn't I?"

Alex's smile blooms again, full of absolute trust.

* * *

"Did you want to - "

"Yeah but not until -"

"I know, it'll only be like five more minutes."

"Okay, but let's not get that again."

"We can just pick out two."

Diane clears her throat loudly to get Piper and Alex's attention. "Hey, Chatty Kathys." They both stop talking and look up; they're sprawled on their stomachs on the living room floor, flipping through tapes and records. "What the fuck are you two talking about?"

They exchange confused looks. Alex answers, in this blatant preteen _duh_ sort of voice, "We're gonna go to the video store after this tape finishes. And pick out two movies for tonight."

Diane rolls her eyes in amusement. "I think you left out a few nouns. And verbs." Piper and Alex look at each other again, expressions blank. They really don't know that they're doing it, the rapid, overlapping shorthand. Diane grins. "I'll give you guys a ride to Blockbuster."

A few minutes later, when they're walking out the door, Diane teasingly snakes her arm around Piper to clap a hand over her eyes. Piper laughs immediately, and Diane nods expectantly at Alex. "Al, hold up a number, I wanna see if she can read your mind."

Alex rolls her eyes, long suffering. "_Mom_."

"Pipe? What number?"

Piper giggles. "I don't think she's doing it."

Diane smirks and lets Piper go. "See, told you it worked."

* * *

It's the summer between elementary and middle school, and Piper's almost always at the apartment.

Diane asked Alex about it, not because she minds at all but because the lack of alternating between the two homes is unusual, but Alex just shrugs and says Piper never wants to go there.

Diane's met Carol Chapman a few times by then..._not_ exactly the warmest woman in the world. That could just be how she acts around Diane - she hadn't been entirely successful in hiding her distaste - but something about the way Piper lights up at any easy, casual affection suggests otherwise.

So she's more than happy to let the kids spend all their time in the apartment; it's nice to know Alex doesn't have many long, schooless days where she's stuck all by herself.

She comes home day at the end of the summer to find Piper sitting alone on the couch, bent over a towel that's spread out on the coffee table and struggling with a bottle of black nail polish.

"Havin' some trouble, baby?"

Piper looks up and smiles sheepishly. "Yeah, can you help me? I can't do the right hand."

"Yeah, that's always a shit show for me, too. Here..." She sits on the coffee table and takes Piper's hand in one of hers, taking the polish with the other. "Where's Al?"

Piper grins. "In the bathroom. She's drying her hair."

"You guys go swimming or something?"

Piper laughs and then seems to try to stifle it. "No..."

The door to the bedroom swings open, then, and Alex steps out, shaking out freshly dyed black hair and looking endlessly pleased with herself. She looks at Diane expectantly. "Do you like it?"

"Badass," Diane declares, grinning in approval. "Looks awesome, babe. When'd you decide to do this?"

Alex shrugs, still smiling and running a hand self-consciously through her hair.

"I put the dye in," Piper informs her proudly.

"Impressive." She winks at Piper, turning her attention back to her nails. "Might get you to do mine next time."

Alex flops down beside Piper on the couch. Piper reaches out with her free and touches a strand of black hair, and Alex squirms away. "You're gonna get wet polish on it, dumbass."

"At least the color matches now," Piper shoots back.

"About that..." Alex grabs Piper's wrist and studies her fingers just as Diane finishes the other hand. "Your mom's not gonna let you keep this. I could have given you red or something."

"Yeah..." Piper shrugs. "I like the black."

Diane glances over at Piper and Alex's matching fingernails. She bites back a smile.

"Mom, don't you think Pipes would look badass with red streaks in her hair?" Alex is laughing and messing up Piper's hair when she says it, and Piper's ducking away and holding her still drying fingernails out of the way and desperately trying to contain the hundred watt smile she almost always has around Alex.

* * *

Women at work always puff out their cheeks and roll their eyes and give her sighing, sarcastic _good luck_'s when they hear Alex is starting middle school. One of the other waitresses, who has four kids already grown and out of the house, gives Diane a consoling pat on the arm and tells her sagely, "Be prepared for a lot of slammed doors and silence. I swear, mine barely talked to me from age twelve to sixteen. At _least_."

Diane always smiles ruefully and nods when they talk like that, but secretly she can't help but think she and Alex will be different, that they're relationship will be the one that doesn't change.

But adolescence is determined to shake things up for them anyway.

A lot of days, maybe even most days, everything's fine. But the unpredictability is what's killer.

Any time, without warning, Diane could come home to find Alex in the middle of a full blown sulk, lying on her bed with headphones on, taciturn and broody and angrily insisting that everything's fine. Once, on a Friday night, Alex shows up at the restaurant way after dark, claiming to have caught a ride there with a neighbor for no reason at all other than boredom. But she's clearly been crying and won't say why, won't cop to anything being wrong.

Diane knows this is normal early teenage stuff, nothing to take personally or worry about, but it's still frustrating as hell. She wants to know everything that's going on in Alex's head, everything that ever upsets her. She never thought they'd have one of those distant relationships, but she can't shake the feeling that Alex is shutting her out.

The only time Diane knows what's she's going to get with Alex is when Piper is around.

Those two, at least, don't seem to have changed. When Piper's over at the apartment, Alex is her easygoing, snarky self, and she and Piper's sleepover routine hasn't altered at all. They still light up for each other, still talk like they'll never run out of words but don't need as many as most people, and, most importantly, still overlap their lives like they always have.

One Sunday morning, sometime in the second half of seventh grade, Piper emerges from Alex's bedroom in the morning, alone. Diane's on the couch, eating cereal and watching TV. She smiles. "Morning, Pipe. Al still asleep?"

"Yeah. I heard the TV." Piper helps herself to a cinnamon pop tart from the kitchen cabinet before joining Diane on the couch. "How was work?"

"Ah, y'know. Not too eventful." She grins, nudging her shoulder against Piper's. "Heard you were at the dance Friday night. _That _sounds much more interesting."

Piper smiles and lowers her head, cheeks pinking. "Yeah, um...so there's this _boy_."

They duck their heads together and giggle and gossip like schoolgirls, Diane letting Piper confide in her about the boy she's "going out" with, the way he kissed her at the dance but will only hold her hand on the car lot.

"Is he cute?" Diane asks.

"Yeah. He's got super blonde hair and _really_ blue eyes. He's on the baseball team."

"Ooh, so you like the jocks, huh?"

"I guess. I mean, I don't know."

"Didn't get into the athlete thing much myself. I was all about the artsy, bad boys."

"Ben gets A's in like everything."

Diane laughs. "So pretty much the opposite of a bad boy. Y'know, that's probably better. You gonna let him take you on a real date?"

"I don't know. We mostly just go to the school basketball games and stuff."

"_Hey_."

They both turn; Alex is standing in the door of the bedroom, glasses perched on her head, looking annoyed.

"Hey, babe. Did we wake you?"

"No."

"Get some breakfast and c'mere." Diane elbows Piper playfully. "Pipes just telling me about her man."

Piper laughs; Alex stomps toward the kitchen and throws open the fridge.

"The only thing, though..." Piper continues. "He calls sometimes, like at night, but he barely even says anything. Just asks if I've done homework and then that's basically it. It's boring, but I can't be mean and just hang up."

"Well, he's what, a thirteen year old boy? Not the best conversationalists, Pipe...trust me, you're lucky he calls. It's hard to get 'em to call."

"_Mom_," Alex groans as she crashes onto Piper's other side. "Stop. _God_. She doesn't wanna talk about it."

"Yeah, I do," Piper counters. "My mom _never_ asks me."

"See?" Diane throws Alex a teasing, mock smug look, but it slips when she sees the angry, knotted up look on Alex's face.

Diane draws her eyebrows together, questioning, but Alex jerks her gaze away, declaring, "Cause it's fucking boring. If you have a new guy every month, why bother talking about just one."

Diane starts slightly at the harsh tone, expecting Piper to take offense, but she just shrugs, seemingly unbothered by the comment. "Yeah, I guess. You wanna work on that book project before my mom comes to get me?"

"Yeah, I guess we have to."

They get up off the couch and head into Alex's room without further argument.

After Piper leaves that afternoon, though, Alex will barely look her mom in the eye.

"Hey..." Diane tugs on the back of Alex's shirt when she tries to sweep past the couch and, most likely, close herself off in her room. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"You know you can't get mad at people and then not tell 'em why," Diane informs her solemnly. "It's kind of unfair.

Alex's face tightens, her eyes flashing. It takes a second before she decides to answer, "Piper's already way too fucking boy crazy. And now she's gonna talk to _you_ about it?"

Diane's face softens, understanding. Piper and Alex still seem as close as ever, but Diane's often worried a little about their closed unit friendship; it seems inevitable that one of them would eventually expand to other people, and Diane's always been fairly sure it wouldn't be Alex.

"Oh, Al...you know what, as you guys get older, you and Piper are _both_ gonna have a lot of boyfriends. Probably a lot of _shitty_ boyfriends. But they're never gonna take your place with her, you know that, right? It's a whole different thing."

Something in Alex's face slams shut. "Okay."

Diane frowns. "What? You don't believe me?"

"I said okay." But she's already walking away, and Diane can't shake a deep rooted bad feeling as Alex's bedroom door slams behind her.

* * *

Something else the women all say, when they see Alex now: _Di, you're gonna have your hands full with the boys being all over that one._

But so far, that hasn't been an issue, and Diane's not exactly surprised. She may have erred more toward Piper's boy crazy attitude - though a different sort of boy, clearly - but she wouldn't expect that from Alex. The years before Piper, when she spent her time at school completely alone and, most likely, made fun of by other kids have made it really hard for Alex to even like anyone else. Her stories from school are usually disdainful accounts of the other students' behavior. She seems to regard everyone else in her school, with the sole exception of Piper, with the utmost contempt.

But Diane's sure it's coming. Alex was tall and gawky for only a handful of preadolescent months before the rest of her body quickly caught up. She carries herself with the self-possession and confidence of someone older than thirteen; she's quickly mastered eye makeup, wears ripped up band shirts and leather bracelets and she's torn all the patches off her oversized jeans.

But middle school passes without any boy drama that Diane's aware of, though sometimes she worries it's all part of whatever Alex isn't telling her. Those moods and sulks have to come from somewhere, and it's not as if she's ever fighting with Piper.

* * *

Eight grade's been out for a few weeks, and Piper and Alex have been spending most of their time at the Chapman's pool.

Alex comes back to the apartment in the middle of a day while Diane's getting ready for work. Her bathing suit is soaking through her oversized T-shirt, hair still damp. "Hey, babe, didn't know you were coming back this early...I coulda come and got you."

"It's okay, Danny dropped me off. Mrs. Chapman's making him drive Piper to her dentist appointment."

"Danny, huh?"

"Yeah." Alex rolls her eyes. "He won't leave us alone, all of a sudden."

Diane smirks. "Think he has a thing for you?"

Alex makes a face. "I think he has a thing for staring at my boobs like an asshole."

"Yeah, teenage boys do that," Diane says sympathetically. "You think he's cute?"

"No."

"Probably good. You don't wanna date your best friend's brother. Messy."

Alex smirks. "Piper gets really annoyed when he tries to flirt."

"I bet she does."

"She's coming over tonight, okay?"

"Oh, good. So do you mind if I grab drinks with some people after work tonight? Don't have to go into Wal-Mart after the restaurant."

"Sure," Alex says agreeably, grabbing a grape popsicle from the freezer. "Who with?"

"Oh, ya know, Beth, probably Robbie. Deb and her husband, Connie and her girlfriend."

At that, Alex's head jerks up. "Connie's...gay?"

"Yeah, you didn't know that?" Diane asks distractedly, glancing at her watch. Her shift starts soon.

"No." Alex is quiet for a moment. Diane's about to head out when she breaks the silence, "And you hang out with them?"

Diane throws her an odd look. "I mean, as much as I have time to hang out with anyone. Why?"

Alex shrugs. "I just didn't know."

"Okay. I gotta go, babe, I'm gonna be late. You and Pipes order a pizza or something, there's cash in the jar. I think."

"Kay."

"I won't be _too_ late tonight."

Diane's halfway to the restaurant before the conversation catches up to her, and it still takes a moment for the possible significance to click in.

_Oh_.

It's nothing close to proof, but as soon as Diane thinks the thought, belated maternal instinct finally (_finally_) kicks in, and she knows she's right.

Instantly, she feels like a horrible, useless asshole, for not knowing something so basic about her daughter, for every idiotic moment she'd casually mentioned Alex having a boyfriend someday like it's a given.

_Fuck_.

* * *

She spends the next month doing subtle, slightly desperate damage control, probably talking more about theoretical dating than she ever has just an excuse to switch to neutral pronouns. She talks about Connie and Lana so much you'd think they were her new best friends. But Alex seems to find the conversations more bizarre and suspicious than reassuring.

Finally, one night, Diane decides to go a little less subtle.

She's in the kitchen, making them grilled cheese for dinner, and Alex is hovering nearby, telling her about Piper's parents, that Piper's pretty sure her dad's cheating with someone new, _again_, and Diane makes a low, disgusted sound, shaking her head.

"Listen, Al...whoever you end up dating, guy, girl, whatever, just never stay with a cheater. That's a shit deal, always."

She says it casually, not looking away from the stove, but she can _feel_ Alex go still behind her. A long moment crawls by before Alex says, quietly, trying and failing to match the casual tone, "Um. It'll probably...just be girls. That I'd wanna date."

Diane turns to look at her, then. "Yeah?"

Alex bites her lip and nods, pale and scared. The fear slices Diane fresh, and she feels like shit for not making _sure_ Alex wasn't scared of this; but she makes herself smile and wink. "I'm fuckin' jealous, babe. Men are assholes." She pauses, pretending to think. "Though I guess women can be pretty batshit, too." She slings a comforting arm around Alex's shoulder, pulling her into her side. "Sorry, Al, guess you're screwed either way."

Alex's arms wrap around her, all at once, hugging Diane tighter than she has in years. She's almost as tall as Diane, but it doesn't feel like it now. Her hands are shaking, and it makes Diane want to cry, thinking about Alex not wanting to tell her this for the past few years.

"Hey..." Gently, she moves back to look Alex in the eye. "I'm so sorry, babe. That I didn't know."

Alex's brow furrows in confusion. "But I didn't _tell_ you."

"I know. But I shouldn't have just...assumed either way, ya know?" She runs her fingers through Alex's hair, holding her gaze seriously. "You know it doesn't matter to me, right? Long as you're happy."

Alex nods, face splitting into a smile that's pure relief; she looks like a gust of wind could knock her over. Diane hugs her again. "Love you, kiddo."

They're on the couch eating their sandwiches, Alex still smiling to herself, when Diane breaks a silence to say what she's been thinking for the past few weeks, "Can I ask the obvious question?"

Alex's face comes alive with nerves, and she looks over expectantly but doesn't answer.

"Are you and Piper...?"

Pure panic flips on in Alex's eyes, her whole face flushing even as she fumbles for an indignant scowl. "What? No! God, Mom, _no_. What, now that you know I'm gay I can't possibly be just friends with a girl?"

"Sure you _can_. I'm just asking if you _are_." Diane smiles a little. "It would...make sense to me, is all. A lot of sense."

Actually, a lot has made sense in the past month since she finally clued in...namely, the way Alex gets pissed off when Piper talks about boys, how adamantly she likes to disparage the boyfriends. But most of all, what makes sense is the way Alex _looks_ at Piper: like she's the best thing in the world, both miraculous and familiar.

The thing is, though, Piper looks at Alex the same way.

For just a second, Alex's face falls open into a look of such unrestrained, aching longing that it makes Diane's chest hurt. But then her daughter rolls her eyes and shakes her head, looking away like this conversation is nothing much. "Piper's straight."

"Ah, babe, you don't know that." She can't help the sympathy snaking into her voice.

Alex hears it, and is clearly disconcerted. "Um. Yeah, I do. She'd have to _really_ like guys to go out with the one she goes out with."

"Eh." Diane shrugs. "Some people like guys _and_ girls. And a lot of 'em just don't figure out who they like until they're way older than you are."

The truth is, she's heard Piper talk about boys plenty, always with a sense of pride but never with the moony, gushing obsession she remembers from crushes at that age, as if the whole point is simply that she _has_ a boyfriend.

Alex's face is dark and broody, and Diane reaches for her out of instinct, but Alex shrugs away, making a face. "I really don't think Piper's like that."

"Okay." She can tell it's best to drop it. "If you say so, kiddo."

Alex is quiet for a few minutes, then starts hesitantly, "Mom?"

"Yeah, baby?"

"One thing about Piper...I don't know if she knows."

"Oh." Diane pauses, waiting for more. When Alex doesn't continue, she prompts, "But you think she might?"

"I don't know. I've always sort of hinted...and she's finally stopped asking me about boys. But I'm afraid she might just think I hate everyone who isn't her."

Diane winces slightly, well aware that she'd thought something similar for awhile. "Well...do you want to tell her?"

It's Alex turn to grimace. "Well I want her to _know_," she answers, tone making it clear those are two different questions.

"Hmmm..." Diane's quiet for a moment; it's true she has no idea what attitude Piper's parents have passed along about this kind of thing. But ultimately, she just _can't_ imagine Piper giving Alex up, for anything.

"Piper's just so _weird_ about shit sometimes," Alex says. "I don't want her to suddenly not wanna sleepover or something dumb like that."

She's trying to sound exasperated, like it's just some little annoyance, but Diane can tell she's thought about that particular point a lot.

Suddenly, Diane laughs, and Alex gives her a strange look. "What's funny?"

"I just...I don't think either you _or_ Pipe could _function_ if you weren't spending half your lives at each other's houses." She softens her smile, easing into something pure and sincere. "She's not gonna be able to give up anything, babe. Trust me. I've watched you two for five years."

She should maybe be more worried: Piper is the only other person in the world that Alex loves, and now Diane's all but certain that she loves her in all the ways possible, and that Alex has known it for awhile. There's potential there for utter disaster, and so much hurt.

But Diane can't picture her daughter without Piper, and vice versa.

Diane puts an arm around Alex's shoulder, gratified when she doesn't pull away - major win for a fourteen year old. "She's your best friend, and she loves you. I _know_ that. Whenever you decide to tell her...it'll be okay."

A few days later, when Piper's about to come spend the night, Alex is bouncing around the apartment, nervously hyper, and after Diane asks three times, she finally says that's she's going to try to tell Piper tonight.

Piper gets there just before Diane leaves for work, so she just gives Alex's hand a quick, reassuring squeeze, smiling softly before she goes, leaving the girls alone in the apartment.

The door's unlocked when she gets home, and the bedroom's empty, which means they're probably on the roof. Diane stretches out on the couch, wanting to stay awake until they come back down, but she drifts off in spite of herself.

The apartment's quiet when she wakes up the next morning. She pushes the bedroom door open and looks in. The girls are curled up as usual, the twin bed a tighter fit these days; Piper's on her back, Alex on her side, forehead barely touching Piper's temple, the Walkman headphones leaning up against the headboard.

They emerge from the bedroom at the same time, laughing and arguing about some Cure song, and as they both chorus _good morning_'s, Alex catches her mom's eye and widens her grin, giving the slightest nod.

A minute later she plucks a doughnut out of Piper's hand. Piper makes a face at her. "Dick."

"Gross," Alex volleys back with a smirk.

They fall onto the couch, feet up on the coffee table, shoulders pressed together, talking soft and fast and easy.

Diane watches them for a moment, feeling like she's waiting for something.

* * *

A/N: _Still to come: Alex and Piper's falling out, Alex and Piper's getting together, Alex's unfortunate Death Maiden concert, and Piper going off to college. _

_I'm basically focusing on fulfilling a few prompts/promises I've long made about YB verse fill-ins on Tumblr...after this I'm doing a oneshot focusing on Alex in middle school, so there are some blanks in this fic that will be filled in there, when we're in her POV._


	3. Chapter 3

"So, let's hear it. What's the verdict on this whole high school thing?"

Piper and Alex exchange a look.

"It's okay," Alex says dispassionately, at the same time Piper declares, "Too soon to tell."

"Yeah." Alex smirks. "Ask her in a few weeks, after she's attended the first meeting of the fifty fucking clubs she signed up for."

Piper shoves her. "It's not _fifty_."

"Ignore her," Diane says with a grin. It's Friday night, the end of their first week in ninth grade, and the girls are sitting across from her in a booth at Friendly's. "What clubs are you doing, Pipe?"

"Um, Ambassador's Club...they do volunteer projects once a month. Student government. Spanish Club - "

"You speak _no_ Spanish," Alex cuts in.

"Yeah, but I'm _taking_ Spanish, and you get extra credit for being in the club."

Diane arches an eyebrow at Alex. "Should you be doing that?"

"No, thanks. It doesn't feel like _extra_ credit when you're basically going to an extra _class_ every week."

Diane rolls her eyes but doesn't push it. "You still doing tennis, Pipe? Even with all that?"

"Yeah, practices aren't until four every day. Most of the clubs don't last more than an hour."

Alex makes a face. "Basically she isn't going to have time for _anything_."

"Oh, shut up, it doesn't even affect the weekends at _all_."

"_Still_."

Piper makes a mocking face at Alex. Alex mocks it back, then steals one of Piper's fries.

It's true that Piper seems busier, that she and Alex don't hang out much during the week anymore; the window between Piper's after school activities and curfew is fairly small. Diane can tell it annoys Alex on occasion, and leaves her somewhat restless and bored.

But Diane can tell Alex is happier, in a general sense; as though a weight has been lifted.

Still, every once in awhile, Diane still feels breathless with how hard she wishes she could take back the last several years, redo every single day Alex felt she had to hide.

* * *

Late one Friday in October, Diane gets home to find the apartment smelling like smoke and two fewer beers than she remembers in the fridge, but Alex is stretched out on the couch watching a movie and drinking soda, the picture of rule following innocence.

"Hey, baby. Whatcha watching?"

"_Mermaids_."

Diane tilts her head at the screen. "Is that Cher?"

"Yeah."

She grabs one of the few beers left and joins Alex on the couch, watching the movie for a few minutes before casually nudging her shoulder against Alex's. "Hey...I saw Pipe tonight."

Alex's face folds in confusion for a second, but then she seems to understand. "Oh, at the restaurant."

"Yeah..." Diane watches Alex's carefully neutral expression. "Said she'd been at the football game."

Her eyes harden a few degrees as Alex asks, "Was she with Cody?"

"Not sure, she was with a whole group of kids."

Alex's lips purse in this pouty little frown. She looks like she can't decide if that's better or worse.

"She said she invited you."

"She did."

Diane glances at the mess on the coffee table: Dorito bags, empty Blockbuster VHS boxes, and a few rogue bits of cigarette ash. "You should have gone."

"I hate football. And anyway, it was kind of a _date_."

"Looked like more a group thing."

Alex scowls. "I'm not friends with her other friends. And anyway, I'm spending the night at her house tomorrow."

Diane takes the hint, dropping the subject.

A few minutes crawl by before Alex adds tentatively, "Was Pipes having fun?"

"Didn't look like it, actually," Diane answers casually. "She looked fucking miserable, to tell you the truth." And it is the truth, save for the few minutes before she noticed Diane at the restaurant.

"Not surprised." Alex sounds cheered by the news. "They're all honors class kids. Boring as fuck."

"Uh, correct me if I'm wrong, kiddo." Diane elbows her. "But you're in honors classes."

Alex rolls her eyes, like that's a technicality. "Barely."

"_Several_ honors classes," Diane counters smugly. She finishes off her beer and adds the bottle to coffee table mess. "Listen, babe, I'm beat. You wanna finish the movie tomorrow or do I get to steal your bed?"

"I'll sleep out here," she answers, habitually turning the volume down a few notches.

"Okay." She kisses the top of Alex's head. "Night, Al."

"G'night."

Diane pauses in the door to the bedroom, suddenly shot through with a wistful sort of longing. She remembers when Alex was small enough to just scoot aside in the tiny twin bed, inviting Diane to sleep th ere as if she were the one doing her mom a huge favor.

* * *

Early in Alex's sophomore year, Diane walks in on her stretched out on the couch, making out with a girl Diane's never seen before.

The sight of her daughter like that - shirt off, hands wound through the girl's hair, looking like she knows exactly what she'd doing - shocks Diane into stillness for a moment. But then they both look up, realizing she's there, and Alex's guest leaps off the couch like she's been shocked.

The girl's a tough looking thing, with black Kohl eyes and a shock of white blonde hair, but right now she looks petrified at being caught. Before Diane can say anything, the girl stammers out, "Oh, God, I'm so sorry, I gotta go, shit, shit, shit..."

Then she's bolting past Diane and slamming the door.

Alex is already wrestling her shirt back on, looking unbothered by the interruption.

"She seemed nice," Diane says dryly, careful to not seem thrown off. She arches an eyebrow, "You know this basically my bed, right?"

Alex smirks. "Sorry."

"What kind of teenager _wants_ to make out on a couch when she's got a bed twenty feet away?"

"You _may_ have noticed that Kate spooks easy." Alex rolls her eyes. "I'm already gonna have to convince her my _mom _has no intention of telling the whole school that she was _experimenting_." She punctuates the last word with an eyeroll and air quotes.

Diane frowns. "That's kind of a bummer, babe.

"Believe me, it's not. I wouldn't exactly advertise this either." Alex smirks. "For different reasons." Off Diane's look, she clarifies, "She's not that great."

Diane lets out a half laugh, half sigh, playfully shoving the side of Alex's head. "I got a couple hours. Wanna grab a bite?"

"Sure, where?"

"Anywhere but Friendly's, I'll be happy. Just lemme change."

The phone rings, and Alex gets up to get it. "If that's Piper, can I invite her?"

"Of course."

Alex picks up the phone, saying hello like she already knows Piper will be on the other end.

* * *

Diane takes off work early a few months later, on Alex's sixteenth birthday, and finds her and Piper waiting in the apartment, twin smiles on their faces.

"Happy birthday, baby," She hugs Alex and kisses her forehead, winking at Piper while she does. "Good day?"

Alex just nods, but Piper plucks something out of her hand and holds it out for Diane's inspection, beaming like it's hers. "Look."

Diane takes the new driver's license and grins. "Hey, there ya go!" She'd barely had a chance to let Alex drive with her on the car while she had her learner's permit, but Diane suspects she's been illegally practicing in the new car Piper's parents gave her even before her birthday rolled around.

She smiles at Alex. "We can work out something with the car...maybe you can come get it sometimes when I'm on long shifts."

"Yeah, sure, whatever works."

"You two ready to go?" They nod and stand up from the couch.

They go to a Mexican restaurant, a good one, where the wait staff put a sombrero on Alex while they sing Happy Birthday in Spanish, the song punctuated by a spoonful of whip cream from a free dessert smeared on her face. Diane and Piper howl with laughter as Alex suffers through it, and Piper takes photos on a disposable Kodak camera.

When they've thoroughly attacked the deep fried ice cream with three spoons, Diane reaches under her chair and pulls out a small stack of wrapped presents. "Here ya go, babe."

Alex gives her a big-eyed look. "Mom...I told you the dinner was enough. I know this place isn't cheap."

"It's your sixteenth birthday, Al, don't argue with me about gifts."

So Alex grins and grins as she opens a new tape deck, new headphones, and a decent sized supply of batteries. She comes around the booth to hug Diane , and she won't stop saying thank you.

"My turn?" Piper says, her eyes dancing with eagerness.

"Hell yeah." Alex holds out a hand, mock greedy. "Give it."

Piper puts an envelope in Alex's outstretched palm.

"If this is just a homemade card, Pipes, we're gonna have an issue."

Piper rolls her eyes, still smiling in gleeful anticipation as Alex rips open the envelope.

Alex's smile fades into shock as she shakes two tickets into her hand. "Pipes, what the hell...?"

Before Diane has to ask, Piper grins at her and explains, "For The Cure, next month."

"Whoa, that's amazing," Diane smiles back in approval. "You know, I went to my first concert when I was sixteen. And my second...and third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh...you get the idea."

Piper laughs, but Alex is still staring down at the tickets, her face screwed up in a hard to read expression. "Piper. I made you a _tape_ for your birthday."

Piper frowns in confusion, like she doesn't see what that has to do with anything. "Actually, you made me _five_ tapes. Specifically for driving." Worry starts to slowly seep into her expression. "What's wrong? You don't wanna go?"

Alex shakes her head, not like she's answering the question, more like she's rejecting this whole thing. "This can't be your present for me. That's not fair."

Piper's face twists in confusion and disappointment. "Not _fair_? What? I don't get it."

"Alex..." Diane murmurs in a low voice.

But Alex is putting the tickets back in the envelope and sliding it in Piper's direction. "You should take Jesse or something..."

"Who's Jesse?" Diane asks, as much to stall the argument's momentum as anything else.

"Her boyfriend," Alex says tightly. For just a second, she meets her mother's eyes, and understanding passes between them. That look feels like the closest Alex has come to admitting something.

"I'm not going with _Jesse_ to a _Cure_ concert," Piper says, sounding appalled at the prospect. "I want to go with _you_." Her voice catches. "Why are you being so mean?"

"I'm not being _mean_," Alex bites out, her face boarded up with embarrassment and irritation.

"_Alex_," Diane cuts her off, sharper this time, pressing her foot over Alex's under the table to punctuate the word. "You _are_ being kind of rude, babe. Pipe got you a _birthday gift _she knew you'd love. This is usually the part where you say thank you."

Alex gives her a look, seeming to think her mom should understand her point. Diane lifts her eyebrows, attempting to silently conveying that she gets it, but that doesn't mean that Alex is right.

Piper seems small, all of a sudden, hunched in the very corner of the booth, looking angry and hurt and most of all disappointed. Diane nods at her, and when Alex looks, she seems to soften immediately.

"Sorry," she mumbles, contrite. "They're really great, Pipes. I mean it, I just...I feel bad I couldn't get you something better."

"I _liked_ the tapes," Piper clenches out.

"Good. But...you know what I mean, though." Alex's face is red; it makes Diane's chest tighten.

Slowly, Piper looks over at Alex. Her expression relaxes a little. "You know one of those is _mine_. That I bought for _myself." _

"I know." Alex smiles at her, finally, then smiles down at the tickets. "This _will_ be pretty fucking awesome."

Piper's own smile creeps back into place. "Right?!"

Diane exhales in relief, glad the tension dissipated fairly quickly. But by the next week, Alex has a job bagging groceries, and when she tells Diane about it she also mutters something about needing to get Piper a _real_ gift for next Christmas.

* * *

The girls go to their concert, and they come back with matching tour shirts that Alex paid for, high on the concert adrenaline Diane remembers so well.

But things are changing with Piper and Alex, if only in the number of hours they log together. Diane's almost more likely to see Piper at Friendly's with a crowd of her unfamiliar friends than she is to see her at the apartment. Even Alex is less present and accessible; Diane beats her home some nights, even on her latest shifts.

Her mom and stepdad had given a strict curfew, and Diane had still snuck out of the house whenever she wanted. She knows she's not home enough to constantly track Alex's whereabouts, and that there's little point in assigning a curfew she's not even home to enforce. She does, however, give Alex a talk about not getting in a car with anyone drunk, thinking of her father the whole time.

She's glad Alex has other friends to make plans with, other girls to kiss, but Diane's still inordinately pleased every time she comes home to find Piper's car parked outside the apartment.

Then..._something_ happens.

Diane's not sure when, exactly; Alex doesn't tell her. A few weekends pass in a row without Diane seeing Piper; Alex just says she's busy, but the weekends stack up and her suspicions rise. Confirming them is Alex herself: she's quiet and on edge, tightly wound. Diane can't shake an almost anxious feeling when she's around her daughter.

One Friday night she sees Piper's usual crowd at their table in Friendly's after the home football game, but Piper's not among them. She's already worried, and this seems to coincidental to not be deliberate.

She goes home and bluntly asks Alex, "Something going on with you and Piper?"

Her face tenses. Or, rather, tenses even more; Alex has been tense for weeks. "Why?"

"Haven't seen her in awhile. Or heard you mention her. And, honestly, babe, you've kinda looked like you lost your best friend, lately, so...I thought I'd check if you had."

Alex's face tightens, and she tilts her head back on the couch, focusing her too bright eyes on the ceiling. Finally, painstakingly, she admits, "We're just...not really friends anymore."

Her voice is so raw it's practically bleeding. Diane's throat narrows, and she comes to sit down beside Alex. "Babe...what are you talking about, what happened?"

"Nothing."

"Al, less than a month ago you two fell asleep on the carpet trying to beat each other at some stupid fucking card game." Alex physically flinches, and Diane gentles her voice. "_Something_ happened."

"We had a fight." Alex isn't looking at her. "It was stupid. I thought we'd just...make up, like usual, but we didn't. Because Piper just...doesn't want to be friends anymore."

"Did she say that?" Diane asks skeptically.

Alex closes her eyes. Almost desperately sad, she whispers, "Kind of."

"Baby..." Diane starts to wrap an arm around Alex, but she stiffens and leans away. It's a habit Diane wishes she could break her of, the way Alex shies away from affection the second it turns sympathetic or comforting.

"I bet you two work it out," Diane says confidently. "You've been friends way too long to let one fight get in the way."

Letting out a groan, Alex doesn't even bother refuting that. Diane can tell she doesn't believe her.

She has to tamp down the urge to push more, ask about the fight, sure if she just knows the details she can assure Alex that things can be fixed. But she can see Alex shutting down, shrinking in on herself. So Diane just moves a little closer to her daughter on the couch and stays there, not saying anything. It takes about five minutes, but finally Alex leans into her, resting her head on her mom's shoulder.

She cuts her eyes sideways, and the achingly lost expression on Alex's face cuts Diane to the quick.

She's known, of course, that the two of them have spent less time together, but their dynamic when they _were_ together hadn't seemed to change. Diane's suddenly unshakably sad, thinking of what this loss must feel like. For _both_ of them.

But she can't quite believe it's a real ending.

* * *

For so long, it's been almost impossible for Diane to picture Alex without Piper.

Now, though, she knows what that looks like.

Her daughter has come untethered.

A perpetually panicked, restless expression has taken root in Alex's eyes, as though she's never where she's supposed to be at any given moment.

Diane starts waking her up for school most mornings, often spotting the tell tale signs of a hangover after late nights. Every once in awhile, Alex won't make it home at all, and all she'll say is that she stayed with friends. Messages appear and then disappear on their recently acquired answering machine, alerting Diane to various skipped classes.

Sometimes Diane thinks about what other parents would do. But there's no car to take away. She can't enforce grounding. Diane's never known how to _punish_.

And anyway, she's not _angry_. It's all worry, almost all the time.

It's with her all day, while she waits tables or works a cash register or cleans motel rooms. The hours she's not home start to stack up and overwhelm her more than they ever have. If Alex isn't home when she stops by the apartment between shifts, it throws Diane off for the rest of the night, distracted as she obsesses over how rarely she knows precisely where her daughter is.

It's hard to sleep, now, until she hears Alex come home, sneaking past her into the bedroom. On the nights she doesn't come home, Diane usually ends up calling the grocery store the next day, making sure Alex shows up for shifts.

She misses getting home to find Alex and Piper vegged out on the couch, or sprawled out on the floor in front of the record player, or already asleep in the bedroom. She misses coming home and finding the apartment empty and being able to safely assume Alex is just at the Chapman's.

She misses Alex's old smile.

When she has a rare night off, or even just a few more free hours than usual, Diane tells Alex about them days in advance, making sure she keeps it free.

On one of those nights, she orders a pizza and sends Alex to rent videos. When they finish the first movie, Alex goes for another, but Diane puts a hand on her arm.

"Babe..."

Alex looks over, dread already flashing in her eyes.

"Everything okay with you?" Off Alex's blank expression, Diane sighs and adds, "You been worrying me a little, kiddo."

Instantly, Alex pulls a combative face. "Why?"

"I feel like I can't...reach you, lately." Alex tenses, looking away, and Diane reaches out, circling her palm between Alex's shoulder blades. "You're not home half the time and...fuck, Al, I don't even know if you're going to school."

"I'm _going_. God. I go enough to graduate. Isn't that all that matters? It's not like I need a good GPA for college applications."

Diane can't think of what to say to that; her eyes skirt instinctively away, not wanting Alex to see the helplessness swelling there.

Alex softens anyway. "I'm just sixteen, Mom. When you were sixteen, weren't you, like...roaming the country on rowdy rock tours?"

"Yeah, but I've never said anything wanting you to follow in my footsteps, Al."

She tries for a smirk. "Don't worry, I'm not gonna get pregnant."

"I'm aware of that, smartass." Diane bumps their shoulders together, then turns serious again, choosing her words carefully. "You know, you're right...I drank and smoked and I went a little wild when I was your age, and even younger. But, baby...I wasn't doing any of that just to distract myself from something being wrong."

Alex's eyes flare. She draws away from Diane's touch, narrowing her eyes. "Why are you so sure something's wrong?" Her voice catches. "How would you even _know_, Mom?"

"Alex - "

"No, seriously, you're saying _I'm_ not home half the time? _You're _the one that's barely ever here. The only thing that's changed is that now I have friends with cars, and I have a _job_, so I don't have to just sit here, by myself, all fucking day."

The words, the genuine venom there, wallop Diane, but she recognizes the defenses for what they are. Alex is right, _painfully_ so, but Diane knows that she's right, too: her daughter isn't happy.

"I'm sorry, Al," Diane keeps her voice quiet so it won't shake. "And I don't blame you for that - "

Alex ignores her, voice shaking with her anger. "You're just waiting for me to be upset because of _Piper_. But _you're_ the one who misses her, Mom. When I was with her all the time, it let you off the hook. So, I don't know, take it up with Pipes if you have a problem." She jerks abruptly to her feet. "You know what, I've got plans."

"Alex, you _don't_ get to walk out in the middle of a fight - "

"It's not a _fight_," she snaps, practically yelling, heading for the door. "And you have to leave again in an hour, anyway, so what the fuck does it matter?"

Diane doesn't sleep that night, and Alex doesn't come home.

* * *

The next day is long, and Alex isn't waiting for her at the end of it. There's just an unerased message saying she wasn't at school.

Diane tells herself that's normal, that Alex is angry and allowed to take a day to cool off. But Diane waits up on the couch, and Alex never sneaks in.

The next day brings another message from the school, and the apartment is empty and silent again when she stops in between shifts.

On the third day, she calls the grocery store when she knows Alex is supposed to be there working, and they tell her she hasn't shown up since the previous week.

Diane stands there, in the back kitchen of Friendly's, brimming over with panic. She keeps thinking about packing up her car in the middle of the night and driving away without a word to her mom or sister, the way she didn't even call for a week.

Then she thinks of her dad driving a car off the road, drunk or high or whatever the hell he was, and Diane wishes she could go back to just imagining a runaway.

She tells the manager she's sick and goes home to the apartment, hands shaking as she pours over Alex's room, looking for evidence that she's at least stopped by in the past few days.

When she finds nothing, Diane sits down on Alex's bed, her breathing too fast and too heavy, paralyzed by the realization that she has no idea where to look next.

Then she gets the phone and calls Piper.

* * *

She sits by the phone for two hours before Piper calls back. Diane snatches it up before the first ring finishes, no weight behind her voice. "Hello?"

"Diane?" Piper's voice is wet and trembling, and pure terror overwhelms her for the few seconds it takes Piper to continue. "I found Alex, she's okay, but...she wouldn't come with me, and..." She hears Piper draw in a crooked gasp of a breath before continuing, "I really think you should go get her."

Diane has dozens of questions, but urgency shoots through her and pushes out the only one that matters right now. "Where?"

She drives to the address Piper gives her, a small shack of a house with an overgrown lawn and ancient cars filling the dirt driveway and a good stretch of the curb.

The pervasive smell of weed in the house throws Diane back in time, and she squints through hazy darkness into a living room of furniture that makes _theirs_ look high end. There's a kid draped over every available surface, but Diane instantly zeroes in on Alex, sitting on the floor, leaning against an arm of the couch.

Even though she'd known she'd be here, Diane heart twists in response anyway, equal parts relief and fear.

Alex's eyes finds her and widen, her lips parting but not managing sound. Diane jerks her head in the direction of the door, ready to stomp over and drag Alex out, but Alex gets to her feet immediately and walks over, muttering goodbyes to no one in particular, her movements too loose and unsteady.

Diane grabs onto her arm as soon as Alex is within reach. There's a chorus of _ooh_'s and laughter from the few people lucid enough to figure out what's going on, but Diane pulls Alex firmly out of the house without giving her a chance to look back.

"You scared the _shit_ out of me," Diane hisses at her, torn in two between the desire to hug and shake her daughter. "Jesus Christ, Al..."

"I told Piper I'd call - "

"And yet she beat you to it."

"This is bad, isn't it?" The pitch of Alex's voice is climbing, words tripping over each other, not sounding at all like Alex. "This is bad, and I said really bad stuff, and you probably really hate me now, right? Mom? Do you?"

Diane takes Alex's chin gently in her hand, scrutinizing her face, all blown pupils and flickering paranoia. Whatever trip she's on has become a bad one, so Diane swallows hard against the tears and tirades trying to rise up her throat, and leads Alex to the car.

"I don't hate you, babe," she says in a quiet, tight voice. "Everything's okay..."

When they get home, Alex launches into a rushed, barely cohesive litany of apologies, and Diane just smoothes her hair back and tells her to sleep it off.

* * *

Alex emerges from the bedroom late the next morning and frowns over at Diane, sitting on the couch, waiting.

"Why didn't you go to work?"

Diane huffs out a humorless laugh. "Honestly, right now, I don't like the idea of letting you out of my sight."

At that, Alex winces, rubbing her face tiredly. "I gotta go to school."

"You haven't seemed to worried about that for awhile, babe." Diane nods to the space beside her on the couch. "Come sit." Dread embeds itself in Alex's features, but she seems to realize she's in no position to argue.

She sits down and leans her head against the back of the couch, looking up at her mom.

"So..." Diane tucks a strand of Alex's hair behind her ear. "Talk to me." Alex opens her mouth, and Diane quickly adds, "And _don't_ give me this shit about nothing being wrong. _Tell_ _me_ what's going on with you."

She keeps her eyes on Alex's face, watching the tears well up, glittering on her eyelashes but not falling. "I don't know." It comes out in a single breath.

Diane waits patiently, but when Alex stays silent, she prompts tentatively, "Is it Piper?"

Alex's eyes squeeze shut, and she presses her thumb and forefinger to the closed lids. "Maybe." Her voice is shaking.

"Baby..." Diane returns soothing, gentle fingers to Alex's hair, and for once she doesn't flinch away. "_What_ happened with you two?"

Alex just shakes her head, her lips twisting, throat working furiously with the effort of not crying.

"Well," Diane says finally. "I know one thing...Pipe was really worried about you. I could hear it in her voice. And...she still knew how to find you." Alex looks away. "That's why I called her, babe. I needed someone who'd be as scared for you as I was."

Alex sucks in a staggered breath. "I'm sorry."

"I know."

"And for all that stuff I said." Her face pinches. "I shouldn't have."

"Alex, you're allowed to get mad at me," Diane tells her gently.

"You don't get mad at _me_."

"Oh, believe me, babe. I'm fucking _furious_ at you." She puts an arm around Alex and kisses her temple, softening the words. "You just can't tell because I'm _more_ worried."

"I'd rather you were mad than worried."

"What were you _on_ last night?"

"LSD."

Diane groans.

"I'd only tried it a few times - "

"And how long has it been since you went to school?"

"I..." Diane can see it, the moment Alex decides against lying. "A few weeks."

"Jesus, Al..."

A few of Alex's defenses shoot back into place. "Sometimes...I don't get the point, Mom."

"Alex, listen to me. Think about your job right now." She pauses. "Or, rather, your _former_ job, because I'm pretty sure you're fired for not showing up." Alex makes a face, but Diane presses forward, "You're sixteen, you're in high school, and you're doing about the same sort of thing _I _am." Her voice catches the slightest bit. "I _wish_ I could send you to college, Al. But you graduating high school isn't _nothing_, okay? I never did that. And I want you to have it."

Alex holds her eyes. "Okay. I know." Then, hesitant, she starts, "It's just..." Too soon, she clams up again.

"What?"

It takes her awhile to say it. "Piper's there."

She wonders if Alex knows the way she says Piper's name. Like it hurts.

"I don't know what happened between you two," Diane says gently. "But if it's making you this miserable...my advice is to fix it."

Alex's face tenses. "I don't think she wants to."

Diane's quiet for awhile. "You know...when she called to tell me where you were, I think she was crying. Which, by the way, scared the hell out of me, for a second." Apologies swarm across Alex's face, again, but Diane continues, "She said _you_ wouldn't go with _her_."

Alex scrubs her hands over her face, slumping low in the couch.

Diane lightens her tone, letting Alex off the hook. "Anyway, I bet she misses you. But for now..." Alex glances up at her. "You and I are gonna play hooky for the day. Been way too long since I saw you for more than two hours at a time, okay?"

* * *

"Whoa, whoa, whoa..." Later that night, Diane reaches out and grabs the hem of Alex's tank top as she walks by the couch; she stands at the same time, peering at the unfamiliar tattoo on Alex's shoulder blade. "When did this happen?"

"Last month," Alex says, the slightest guilt tinging her voice. "I had money saved for Piper's Christmas present, then I just...paid for this instead." She cranes her neck, trying to see Diane's face. "You like it?"

"Looks good. Badass," Diane murmurs, ignoring her own pangs of guilt and irrational, unfair hurt.

It's a salt shaker, and Diane knows immediately why.

There's an obscure, B Side track on the first Death Maiden album, the one before they hit it big with _Dirty Girl_. It's the only song Lee wrote on that one, and there's a line in the refrain: _I'm throwin' salt over my shoulder, thrown' luck into the shadows_.

It's always been one of Alex's favorite of his songs. And now there's a reference, permanently etched on her skin.

* * *

Diane switches for a few graveyard shifts, getting off Wal Mart at six am, to free up a few evenings so she can be home with Alex, and Alex doesn't complain when she checks and double checks that she's sleeping in the apartment.

But she doesn't mention Piper again.

Diane's home on a Saturday night, about a week after she'd dragged Alex out of that drug den of a house. They're watching a movie, but she'd worked all night on Friday, and gone straight to another shift during the day, so she starts to crash early. Still awake and engrossed in the TV, Alex tells her to take the bedroom.

Diane wakes up in the middle of the night to the sound of the door closing.

She stiffens immediately, dread heavy in her gut as she assumes Alex is leaving, sneaking out. Diane's out of bed, halfway to the door, when she hears voices.

"Asleep in my room," Alex is saying. "Sit. I'm getting you water. And I'd really fucking love it if you didn't puke, okay?"

Diane can tell from Alex's voice who she's talking to, even before she hears Piper's reply.

* * *

When she leaves for work the next morning, Alex is asleep sitting up on the couch, her legs propped on the coffee table, cheek pressed against the back of the couch cushion, neck lolling in what looks like a supremely uncomfortable position.

Piper's stretched the length of the couch, her head pillowed on Alex's lap. Alex's hand is limply threaded through her hair.

Diane smiles.

This seems about right.

For the first time since her fight with Alex, Diane lets herself really, truly believe that Alex will be okay.

Just like when they were little kids, there are certain things Diane just can't fix for her daughter.

But it's always seemed like Piper can.

She sneaks out without waking them.

* * *

They're not home when she gets back that evening, but for the first time in awhile, the empty apartment doesn't worry her.

They eventually come back, both of them. They're laughing, Piper tugging on the back of Alex's shirt as she trails her into the apartment, and Diane smiles at them and mutes the TV. "Well, this is good to see."

"Yeah, we, uh..." They look at each other, laughing - _giggling_, really - and blushing.

Diane _knows_, somehow, right away. But she doesn't let them off the hook because she wants to see how they say it. They're looking at each other, some sort of silent, eyes only communication.

Finally, Alex smirks. "Pipes just totally came onto me."

"Oh, God." Laughing, Piper covers her face with her hands.

Diane looks back and forth between the two of them. Alex's eyes meet hers and somehow, her smile widens. She's smiling like she might never have to stop, and for just a second Diane feels bowled over with the realization that she's never seen Alex this happy.

She's maybe never seen anyone this happy.

She teases them for awhile. She watches the way Alex keeps playing with Piper's fingers and touching her hair with in this awed, giddy way, like she can't believe it's allowed. She watches the way Piper's eyes chase Alex's every movement like she's following sunlight.

And, later, maybe the first time Alex and Piper get more than a foot apart, she wraps Piper up in a hug.

"Thanks, baby," Diane whispers, and Piper hugs back, hard. Like she's missed her. Diane winks, her face soft. "I knew I could still call you."

* * *

When Piper reluctantly goes home for the night, Alex walks her out, and comes back in ten minutes later still looking like she can't turn off her smile.

"_So_." Diane smirks. "You two made up."

Alex lets out a breathless, disbelieving laugh, then flops down on the couch beside Diane, smiling sheepishly.

"Do I get to know the story?"

Alex shrugs, her smile turning almost shy. "Pipes got drunk at a party last night, and she called, kept saying she was gonna drive here. Totally dumb. So I took the car and went to pick her up -"

"I heard you two come in," Diane tells her. "Must've slept through the phone, though."

"She was all weepy and apologetic, so I guess we made up then. And this morning...I was just making breakfast, and she'd just gotten out of the shower and...I don't know." She gives that laugh again. Her eyes are awestruck. "She kissed me."

Diane laughs softly. She nods across the apartment. "Over there?"

"Yeah. Just in our fucking kitchen." They both laugh then, and then Alex's expression turns thoughtful. "I _never_ thought this was gonna happen."

Alex meets her eyes, and for a second, it's like Diane can see all the years her daughter had been longing for something she had to convince herself would never happen.

* * *

Alex is happy.

For awhile, it really is just that simple.

Now, when Alex isn't home, Diane knows exactly who she's with, and when she is in the apartment, Piper's usually with her, at least until the very last possible minute on school nights. For the first few weeks, Alex makes a face when Diane uses the word _girlfriend_, and Diane rolls her eyes because relationship labels seem beside the point when anyone paying attention can see they're already in love.

When they stay in the apartment on weekends, Diane still peeks in on them after her latest shifts, out of habit. They still fill up that old twin bed, Piper draped over Alex, their limbs vining around each other.

Diane sees them like that, sometimes, and it provokes an unexpected wave of strange, bittersweet jealousy.

Sometimes, when the girls come to Friendly's to visit, or when the three of them are at the apartment at the same time, Diane will catch Alex looking at Piper - this soft eyed, fully content expression, like Piper's all she needs to be happy - and for just a second, it feels like Diane's chest is caving in.

Alex isn't all hers anymore. And maybe it's always been true, the whole time those two have known each other, but now Diane _knows_, with an irrational, bone deep certainty, that she will never again be the person her daughter loves most in the world.

It hurts, thinking about that.

And it also leaves her so, so grateful.

* * *

Once, Diane comes home and hears _Close to Me_ blaring through the apartment door, accompanied with wild, overlapping laughter.

"You're such a fucking dork," she hears Alex say, her voice slurred and warm and happy.

If Diane had to lay bets, she'd guess they snagged a bottle of wine - or two - from the Chapman house and brought it here, and now they're drunk and dancing. Or, even more likely, Piper's dancing, while Alex sits on the floor by the record player and teases her.

Diane listens for a moment, and then goes back to the car. They'd be happy to see her, but they wouldn't have as much fun as they probably are right now, in this moment. So she lets them have another hour or so to themselves.

* * *

She finds Alex brooding alone on the couch one Friday evening, a few months into senior year, and Diane immediately raises her eyebrows. "Wow. Almost didn't recognize you, all by your lonesome." Alex makes a face at her, and Diane grins. "Where's Piper?"

"Out of town for the weekend." Alex's jaw tightens almost imperceptibly. "Visiting a college."

"_Oh_. Which one?"

"Smith."

"Well, that's not so far."

"Three hours."

Diane makes a sympathetic sound. She'd known this was coming, and she knows Alex is dreading it.

"I guess I should be glad her parents aren't pushing her to go somewhere in fucking California or something," Alex mutters. "They could afford it."

"That poor kid," Diane says, sighing "Don't think she knows her parents would still love her even if she didn't get straight A's."

"They might not," Alex says bitterly.

Diane pats Alex's arm. "Good thing she has you."

* * *

"Alex!"

Alex turns at the sound of her voice and grins. Diane shoulders past a few other parents to wrap her daughter in her arms.

When she's done hugging her, Diane pulls back and laughs. "Look at you, in the fucking cap and gown..." Her smile softens. "I'm proud of you, babe."

Alex smirks "Yeah, too bad they don't have a special sash thing for doing the barest possible minimum to graduate."

"Still counts," Diane clarifies with a grin. "Where's Pipe?"

Alex rolls her eyes. "Her whole family's here, they're taking a thousand photos and then going to brunch or something."

"Well, _food_ isn't such a bad idea. C'mon, wherever you want to go..."

"Al!"

Alex stumbles forward a bit, then grins as Piper, her black graduation robe now open over her dress, leaps onto her back, knocking both their hats off in the process. Piper's various honors sashes and cords drape over Alex's shoulders. "You're gonna split your dress open, dumbass."

"So?" Piper glances around before planting a fast kiss on Alex's cheek, then she slides off her back, smiling somewhat sheepishly at Diane.

"Congratulations, baby." Diane hugs her. "Where are your parents?"

"They're getting in the car." She holds up a Kodak camera. "But I needed photos."

"_Pipes_." Alex gives an exaggerated groan.

Piper makes a mocking face at her. "Shut up, you're gonna smile, and you're gonna like it."

Diane smirks, taking the camera. "Gimme that thing."

Piper smiles at her. "I want some with you, too."

She winks. "Do I have to wear a robe?"

Alex tosses her that graduation cap, pushing her tongue between her teeth. "You can have this, Mom."

Piper backhands her arm. "No, you have to keep it on for the photos."

* * *

Diane doesn't spend much time with Alex, that summer, and almost never without Piper. She understands; soon Piper leaves and it will be just the two of them again, and she hates how scared Alex looks when she thinks no one's watching her too closely.

So Diane becomes the optimistic voice, and it's easy because she really doesn't worry about Piper and Alex, doesn't think for a second that the way they feel about each other will have trouble surviving two hundred lousy miles.

So at every chance, she reminds Alex that it's not a bad drive, that there are frequent breaks and long weekends, that Alex can borrow the car or even take a Greyhound.

And she encourages this plan Piper and Alex have latched onto, the one where they save up and Alex moves to Northampton by Piper's sophomore year. She pretends that the thought of it, of Alex _gone_, doesn't break her heart a little more every time they mention it.

* * *

"Hey, you," Diane says as she walks into the bedroom, heading to the closet to change work shirts. "Didn't think you were home."

Alex is lying on her bed, glaring at the ceiling, headphones on. "Why?"

"Pipes car isn't outside."

"Her mom took her shopping for dorm room stuff," she says tersely.

"Ah." That explains Alex's mood. It's been a downward slope, all summer, and now they're less than a week away from Piper leaving. Diane glances over her shoulder, taking in the room for the first time. The walls have more blank spots than usual. "Looks like you sent her off with half your posters."

"Nope," Alex replies, sharper than seems necessary.

Diane turns around to give her a questioning look; then her eyes fall on the biggest white space of wall, right above Alex's bed, prominent enough so she remembers the poster that used to be there.

Her stomach already sinking, she quickly surveys the walls, realizing which band is now entirely absent.

"Alex...?" Diane's voice is heavy with dread.

Alex is watching her, face stony, but not giving her anything to go on.

"Alex, what happened?" God, she hasn't read anything on Lee in years and years, but Alex could have found out anything; drug arrest, another kid, who the hell knows.

"Piper and I went to a Death Maiden concert," Alex says in this dull, lifeless voice that scares the hell out of Diane.

"When?" Diane forces out, not because it's the most important question, but because it's the first word she can manage.

"Last night."

"Did you..._talk_ to...?" Diane trails off, the look on Alex's face answering the question. She exhales hard. "Baby...what did he say to you?"

"What do you think?"

Hot, pulsing rage has its grip on Diane, just like that, and her voice hardens with it. "_Alex_, what the fuck did he say to you?" Her mind is running ahead, it's already finding the next show, already storming backstage, already beating Lee to death with his own goddamn drumsticks.

Alex's eerie numbness is dissolving as she jolts into her own anger. "What do _you_ think he said, Mom?! What would be your best guess, since _you_ know him. Since you know how fucking cool he is?"

Diane's face falls. She can't think of an answer, but the devastation etched in her expression seems to confirm what Alex wanted to know.

"Yeah," Alex says, her voice barely audible but no less furious. "That's what I thought. There was always the chance that you _really_ believed everything you said, but no. Turns out I'm the only idiot."

"You are _not_ \- "

"What really happened with you and him?" Alex demands. _  
_

"Al, please, tell me what he did." Her voice sounds shot through with panic, Diane can't focus, can't get beyond the vague worst case scenarios piling up in her head.

"_Fuck_ that, _you _tell _me_, Mom!" Alex is yelling now. "Tell me the fucking truth!"

Diane gives her a helpless, apologetic look. Alex's eyes are shiny and unyielding.

Finally, softly, she tells her. The words feel launched from a gun in her chest, aimed outward, aimed at _Alex_, but they have to rip through Diane to get there. "We were together for three months of his tour," her voice is dulled, like she's reciting something. "When I told him I was pregnant, he was high. Heroin. He said everything would be okay, that I shouldn't get too worried...we slept together. When I woke up, he was gone. There was some cash in an envelope on the dresser, and the whole tour had left without me."

Alex is nodding her head and not stopping. "Yeah. Yeah, okay, that makes a _lot_ more sense." She laughs, a weightless, frightened sound. "I guess, I can't even be mad at you, right? I should have figured it out, y'know, since we've been broke my entire life, or since I've never _once_ heard from him. You didn't even go all out, didn't have to send me fake letters or birthday cards or whatever the fuck, and I _still_ stupidly didn't put it together that he probably wasn't a good guy." Her face twists, and she sucks in a stuttered breath that's almost a sob. "That's how much I trusted you, Mom."

The past tense is a knife to the gut.

Diane moves toward Alex, reaching for her, but she launches off the bed as soon as her mom gets close. "I am so, so sorry, babe. I never thought you'd find him - "

"That shouldn't _matter_."

"I know, I know it shouldn't..." Her every syllable is rattling with panic. "Just listen for a second, okay? Let me explain - "

"You know the whole day, before the concert, Piper looked so _worried_. And I didn't get why, I thought she just couldn't understand something like this, that she was being overdramatic...but she was totally right. She _knew_ what would probably happen - "

"What _did_ happen?" Diane doesn't have a hold on the desperation anymore; her voice is practically throbbing with it.

Alex ignores her, pressing on, tears starting to thicken her voice. "Which means she's probably known this _whole_ time how stupid I sound - "

"_Stop_ saying that, stop saying you're stupid."

"What the fuck am I _supposed_ to say?" Her voice finally cracks, tears starting to roll down her cheeks. "I bought all these posters, Mom! And tapes, and...and I fucking saved up my money to buy that band shirt that I wore _all_ the damn time."

It's like saying this out loud is hurting her, her whole voice is anguish. "_Fuck_, I have a _tattoo_ because of his goddamn fucking song...and, God, I wore those Death Maiden patches on my backpack for seven _years_ of school...how the hell am I _not_ supposed to feel like a complete fucking idiot about that?"

Alex is crying now, angrily spitting the words around harsh, stammering breaths. There are tears in Diane's eyes, she feels like something's crashing down around her ears, but when she moves toward her daughter Alex backs away.

"Alex, please." She's begging, shameless. "Just tell me what he did." She's going to kill him. Forget the drumsticks, she'll do it with her bare hands.

But then, Alex's face contorts with something almost like _betrayal_, and for a second Diane can't catch her breath.

"He's a stranger, Mom." Alex wipes her sleeve under her eyes, looking angry at herself for losing control. "I shouldn't even _care_ what he did..._you're _the one who let me."

"Alex - "

"Don't you have to leave for work?" Alex clenches out, curling back up on her bed, her hands shaking as she grabs her walkman and tries to untangle her headphones.

"Babe..._please_ give me a chance to talk here."

"Just _g__et_ _out."_ Alex snaps, putting on her headphones, physically holding her hands over the ears and screwing her eyes shut. It would seem like such petulant, bratty teenager behavior, except she's still desperately trying to make herself stop crying.

Alex has never yelled at her to leave before. Not once.

Diane feels numb, like she's still in shock, absorbing the blow that is this whole conversation, so she dazedly backs out of the bedroom, leaving Alex alone.

She really _is_ supposed to be at work, and she gets out of the apartment, downstairs, and into the front seat of her car before the shock wears off, all at once, and she presses a white knuckled fist against her lips as she starts to sob.

* * *

She doesn't make it to work.

When Diane gets a hold of herself, she goes back up to the apartment, closing the door loudly. She turns on the TV, not to watch, but so Alex will know she's here if she momentarily quiets the music.

But Diane gives her space. She figures she has no right to push it.

It takes three hours before the door finally opens and Alex steps out, red eyed and exhausted looking. She looks at Diane, expression impossible to read. "Why didn't you go to work?"

"I've told you before..." Diane fumbles around for a weak smile, turning off the TV. "Shouldn't walk out during a fight."

Slowly, Alex comes to sit beside her on the couch; a cushion away, but still beside her.

"Will you tell me what happened?" Diane asks softly.

Alex stares straight forward, visibly gathering strength. "I went backstage without Piper. Told her I'd come get her after we met..." She swallows. "At first it was okay. He said he was happy to see me. He didn't...not believe me, or anything. Then..." Her voice falters, and Diane barely stops herself from reaching for her hand. Alex laughs humorlessly, face twisting distastefully. "Then he said he never would have recognized me, and that he could have...he could have accidentally fucked me. Because I have a _serious rack_."

"_F__uck." _The curse rips out of her, smoldering with anger. "That fucking asshole..."

"I just _really_ hated him," Alex says in a small voice, chancing a look over at Diane. "And I do feel really, _really_ fucking stupid."

"You shouldn't," Diane tells her. "Please, _please _don't, Al, listen to me..." She takes a second, almost too surprised that Alex isn't yelling anymore to figure out what to say. "Babe, you were...so, so little when I started telling you about him...and I kept it up, the same story, so of _course_ you didn't think to question. You can be mad at me, you _should _be fucking furious, but...I can't stand you being hard on yourself about it."

Alex is chewing on her lower lip, eyes glistening with tears. She takes off her glasses and puts them on the coffee table, pressing her fingers to her eyes. Finally, she breathes out, "_Why_?"

It's all Diane can do to keep her eyes on Alex's face, to force herself to see all the hurt there. She's going to be demolished by the time this is over. "Alex. Baby...when you were first born...I was just telling a story for myself. You talk about feeling stupid, Al, I'd...I'd been left behind in a hotel room by a famous guy I thought was in love with me. And when I tried to go home, my mom wouldn't even let me in the house. I..." Her voice snags. "I took you from the hospital to a homeless shelter, babe. It was a mess, I was...pathetic."

Now it's Alex looking away, unable to look at the pained expression on her mom's face. Diane reaches over, touching a strand of her hair, and she nearly cries with relief when Alex doesn't pull away.

"All I had was the story," Diane continues resolutely. "And...it was a lot better to think about how a famous rock star had wanted me, even for a little while, then to tell everyone he was a junkie asshole who used me."

Alex's eyes are big, looking like she's struggling to process this bit of revisionist history.

"I didn't mean to tell you much," Diane says. "Just that he was a musician, and that we weren't together long. But Alex..." Her voice quivers slightly around her daughters name, and Alex looks away again, sliding a little closer on the couch when she does.

"There was so much I couldn't give you, babe. You had to change schools so many times, and you were by yourself so much, and...and all those kids at school...I couldn't make you feel cool. Not with better clothes, or an apartment you wanted to invite friends to, or a job you weren't embarrassed by..."

Alex flinches a little, her lower lip trembling. "Mom..."

"It's okay." Diane soothes a hand through her hair again, and Alex leans into her, resting her cheek on Diane's shoulder. "I knew those snobby little bitches at your school made fun of you. And I couldn't fix it. _I_ couldn't give you _anything _that would make you feel better...except for that story."

Diane feels tears rising up her throat more insistently, but she tightens her jaw and forces herself to continue. "I thought it was only fucking fair, right? He didn't give us _anything_, so I took the only thing about him that was worth a damn...the fame, and that goddamn rock star image. But, baby, I never, _ever_ thought..." She loses the battle, her voice collapsing into pieces, tears brimming over. "I never thought he'd have a chance to hurt _you_."

Alex reels back, horrified. "Mom. Please don't cry. Seriously, I'm sorry, he...he said something gross, but it could've been so much worse. I'm making too big of a deal."

Shaking her head, Diane wipes her eyes. "No, no, don't do that. Don't be sorry." Alex leans on her again, taking refuge in the shoulder of Diane's work polo so she doesn't have to see her crying.

"I'm sorry for yelling at you," Alex mumbles against her after a moment.

"You can yell more if you want," Diane tells her shakily. "I'd deserve it."

"You don't."

"Oh, babe..." Diane leans her head on Alex's, blinking a few last tears into her hair. "I really am _so_ sorry."

They're quiet for awhile, and when Alex looks up, her eyes are red, too. "I can't picture you with someone like him."

"Oh, God...I barely can either, anymore." She laughs tiredly. "You have any idea how lucky you are, Al?" Alex's face folds in confusion. "You and Piper both, I mean. You fell in love with your best friend. And I'm really fuckin happy you're never going to have to just...accept whatever love you can get from someone."

Alex's eyes darken, just a little. "You always say stuff like that, like it's a given that Piper and I are..._permanent._" Her voice fades a little. "She's leaving in five days."

"She'll be back."

"I'm just..." Alex shakes her head a little, cheeks reddening. "I'm not ready for her to go."

"I know you aren't, babe." Diane wishes she could give Alex her faith, her certainty of how _rare_ of a thing she and Piper have. Sometimes Diane thinks that all those years Alex spent convincing herself Piper wasn't something she could have are too deeply rooted. That Alex has never quite stopped believing that it will all go away.

After a minute of silence ticks by, Diane turns the TV back on. Alex puts her glasses back on, then settles back against Diane's shoulder.

They don't talk for the next ten minutes, then suddenly Alex says tentatively, "Mom?"

"Yeah, babe?"

"I, um..." She slides her eyes away from the television. "I was never embarrassed by _you_. Okay? And I know you did _everything _for me. I shouldn't...I shouldn't have even needed to find him."

"Oh, Al..." Her voice is gentle. "Is that why you didn't tell me you were going?"

"I guess. I just...didn't want you to think you aren't enough."

Diane's heart catches at that, remembering her promises to herself when Alex was born.

"I know that, baby."

Alex cracks a grin. "_You're _the one who made me cool, by the way."

Diane smiles back. "I did?"

"Mmm-hmmm. And then we both made Piper cool."

"Oh, yeah?"

"With a _lot_ of effort."

"I'm gonna tell her you said that."

* * *

Five days later, Diane hugs Piper goodbye in the parking lot of the complex, then goes inside to leave them alone, squeezing her daughter sympathetically on the arm as she goes; Diane's pretty sure Alex didn't sleep at all last night.

She can't help but glance out the window, a few moments after getting back inside; they're standing close, foreheads touching.

Diane backs away, just far enough so her view out the window is the edge of the apartment parking lot, so she sees the moment when Piper's car creeps away.

She manages to wait three minutes, and when Alex still hasn't come back inside, Diane can't take it anymore, her out there, alone.

Alex is sitting on the bottom steps of the apartment building, spine curved, her glasses perched on her head and the heels of her hands pressed against her eyes.

She sits up when she hears Diane's footsteps on the stairs, sniffling and putting her glasses back on. There are tears streaming down her cheeks, but she immediately starts pretending there aren't. "I'm fine."

"Okay." Diane sits down beside her, taking her cue from Alex and not making a big deal, just squeezing her shoulder. "How was Pipe?"

"Sad."

"Of course."

"And scared, I think."

"I'm sure."

Pure devastation seems entrenched in Alex's eyes, and it tugs at Diane's chest. She nudges Alex's shoulder. "And how are _you_?"

Alex sets her jaw, lifts her eyes upward. She takes a second to answer. "It just...feels like she's not coming back."

"You know she is."

"But...not all the way back. Not really."

Diane doesn't have to ask what she means. Piper's going off to another life, one Alex doesn't get to be a part of. One Diane can't give her.

"You know...she may not come all the way back to this fucking town. Or even to parents. But, Alex...Piper's _always_ going to come back to you."

Alex laughs a little, shooting her a look. "How are you so sure?"

"Because I've seen the way that girl looks at you." She touches Alex's cheek. "And I know what it's like to love you that much."

The smile falters on Alex's face, her eyes filling up fresh. "Thanks."

Diane puts an arm around her, and Alex lets her. "And, honestly, I'm glad I get you to myself for one more year...before _you_ leave and don't come back."

* * *

**A/N:** _Some people, in reviews, had mentioned wanting to see events from later than this, specifically Landslide. While that could still happen at some point, this first piece was just intended to cover through "Young Blood". Diane's obviously really prominent in "Landslide", but that's a much __tighter narrative, not as many empty stretches for fully new material...I'd just be rewriting POV for existing scenes. I still could do some at some point - Diane's been great to write - with specific prompts, but it'll be separate from here._

_Thanks so much for reading this. I thought it was going to be my most self-indulgent, uninteresting piece, but the response for it has been completely overwhelming. Y'all continue to be the best. Lemme know what you thought! _


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